The Ocean and Truth
by ainokitsune
Summary: Ukyo annoys Ryoga, Ryoga complicates her life. Chapter 6: a big fat bridge chapter with lots of exposition and too many characters.
1. Avidya

_Author's notes: This is basically me completely ripping off one of Takahashi's plots, only instead of Akane its...Ryoga. Yeah. _

_I'd feel worse about it if I weren't ripping off her characters as well. At least no-one can accuse me of using her writing style...XD (I'm also using the shortened spelling of the names, as "Ryoga" takes less time to type than "Ryouga" and believe it or not, that makes a difference.)_

_Enjoy._

* * *

**The Ocean and Truth**

…

_What are heavy? Sea sand and sorrow;  
What are brief? Today and tomorrow;  
What are frail? Spring blossoms and youth;  
What are deep? The ocean and truth._

_--Christina Rossetti_  
…

1: avidya (ignorance)

It was warm.

Ryoga opened his eyes. In noiseless exhalation the world drew away from him and coalesced into the color and shape of the sky overhead, achingly huge and empty. All around the trees bent their heads low. The smell of grass and flowers and dust surrounded him, and a hardness pressed against his spine and shoulders, hips and head. Spring was bleeding out slowly, but the air was dry, and he could hear birds.

He could see a face. He turned his head slightly to regard the features which at first were not those of a human being but merely a collection of assembled parts. Eyes, mouth, forehead, cheeks, nose...

He said, "I thought I was in the desert."

The features resolved. It was someone that he recognized.

"This isn't the desert." Ukyo squatted beside him and her expression was impossible to define. Ryoga smiled slightly. He didn't know why—the expression came from nowhere and tugged at the corners of his mouth, tugged his mind with an awareness of calm, of stillness, of the world at rest.

He sat up. Ukyo stood back.

"Where am I?"

Ukyo said, "This is the empty lot. You know? The one near my restaurant. How did you get here?"

Ryoga looked up.

"I thought...I fell."

Ukyo looked up too.

"You didn't fall, sugar," she said, not unkindly, "There's nothing up there."

Ryoga got to his feet and felt himself swaying slightly. The ground didn't seem to be quite under his feet. Ukyo looked at him again and her eyes widened.

"I fell," Ryoga repeated. But Ukyo was looking at something else. His bandana? Ryoga started to lift his hand.

"Ryoga!" The girl blurted, "Oh god! Your head!"

"My—"

"Your head! My god—my god, Ryoga, somebody put a _hole _in your _head _!"

But Ryoga didn't really hear her, because his legs had already given out, and he was falling, and falling, and...

..and...

--

_white_

_...white..._

Not the colors of the sky as they are, but the way in which they are perceived.

And the stars

The stars remained steadfast.

._..white..._

_In a million years the arm of the galaxy shifts, turns from its place to a new position, and with it all the planets, the suns within it, the people on a tiny mote of dust in a little system somewhere far away from the violence at the center. In a million years things change, a world moves at a terrible speed and with agonizing slowness, beyond the comprehension of a human being, or a mayfly, or any other brief flash of light in the darkness. The light of the sun flickers in the water, a planet dies in the fires of its sun, lives are extinguished and in the crucible of pain new beings are born, hurtling outward from a dying giant to be the atoms and building blocks of a new life, somewhere else._

_Yet in this place, the stars remain._

_Steadfast._

--

"No," Ukyo said, shutting the door quietly and coming to join Ranma on the stairs. "He hasn't opened his eyes since."

"I don't understand. He just...fell over?"

"That's what happened. That...bandana thing of his, it was bloody, and then it sort of shifted when he moved and there was a sort of...shiny spot on his—I mean behind his temple. And a dark place...when I cleaned it I could see a...like a space. It looked like...like someone'd stuck a finger in his skull."

Ranma looked up at the ceiling and blew a sharp breath through his teeth.

"I just don't get this," he said, "You're telling me he dropped from the _sky_?"

"That's what he sai—well, he said he fell. But Ran-chan he didn't _fall_. There was no sign of impact and nowhere for him to have fallen from, unless you want to tell me that our alien masters have returned…"

"And Ryoga being, well, _him, _he shoulda left one big crater behind, anyways." He glanced up at the door. "Did he say anything else?"

"He said something about the desert."

"Do what now?"

"He said...he thought he was in the desert. And that he fell. He got up, he stood up, but then he just went...down again. I saw his legs...he just...collapsed. I thought that kind of thing only happened in B-movies."

"I'm going to get Dr. Tofu," Ranma said determinedly. "I'll be back as fast as I can. _With _the doctor."

"I'll look in Ryoga's things," she said, starting back up the stairs. "For some ID info. Something for insurance."

But she stopped when she slid the door open again. Because Ryoga's backpack wasn't here, after all. On some level she'd known that. She hadn't brought it back with her. It hadn't been anywhere around. Ryoga hadn't had it with him.

He hadn't brought anything with him.

--

_It was the earth which had broken._

_The stars in the sky remained steadfast._

--

He opened his eyes.

"Ukyo." His eyes flickered from side to side before he remembered to turn his head.

"Ukyo." He struggled to sit up, propping himself on his left elbow. He was lying in a futon. Ukyo was some little distance away. She had a soft, damp cloth in her hands.

"Don't you try to sit up," she cautioned.

"Why am I—" he winced as he turned his head; something twinged on the side of his skull, "_Why _am I—is this..._your_...?"

"We're above the restaurant," she said briskly, returning the cloth to the basin and getting to her feet. "This is where I live. You'd better lie back down. I'll bring you some tea." She padded out on sock feet and the door whispered shut. Ryoga gingerly lay back down, eyes wide and staring at the ceiling of the tatami room.

"I stood at the edge of the ocean," he said to no-one, "And watched the world catch fire..."

Ukyo returned after a few minutes with a tray, and helped to prop him up with some cushions. She settled herself beside the futon and quietly and unhurriedly poured tea for both of them.

"Ryoga," she said when he took the proffered cup from her, "What _happened_?"

He stared at her blankly, then cautiously sipped his steaming tea, eyebrows raised and eyes never leaving her face.

"I'm not sure what you mean," he said, flushing slightly—and not just because he was afraid of Ukyo and her fearful spatula. He gently turned the cup and watched his reflection shiver on the surface of the tea.

"Ryoga--!" She sounded exasperated already. That was pretty typical of any interaction with her.

"I'm serious, Ukyo. I don't know--why am I...in your...uh..." he blushed harder this time. Ukyo frowned.

"You don't remember being outside? Me finding you?"

Ryoga shook his head, and winced again, lifting his hand to touch the...bandages?

"Ukyo?" his voice sounded fearful to his own ears.

"You don't remember," she said flatly.

"Nn."

"Not being outside."

"No."

"Or talking to me."

"No."

"Or babbling about being in the desert—"

"Uh..."

"Or getting up and pitching flat on your face?"

"What...desert? What are you talking about?"

Ukyo plucked the teacup from his unresisting hands. She looked directly in his face.

"You don't remember telling me that you fell out of the sky?"

Ryoga's hands flopped into his lap.

A long silence fell. Outside came a brief rustle of wings and a small shadow flickered in the sunlight on the floor; a bird passing by.

Finally Ryoga said, "Are you sure you aren't talking about somebody else?"

Ukyo got up and opened a window. The smell of spring filled the little room.

"What's the last thing you remember, sugar?"

Ryoga shut his eyes and sank back on the cushions.

"What do you remember?" Ukyo asked again, softly.

"_Sugi_," he said slowly. "Cedar trees. And..._yamazakura_."

"_Yamazakura_..." Ukyo paused, "They bloom early...Ryoga, that was _weeks _ago."

He opened his eyes.

"Think harder. The sakura trees are already getting their first leaves. Ryoga! This is _April _."

He exhaled, and closed his right hand around his left, but that didn't stop them from shaking.

"I don't—I remember the smell. Earth. Grass. Trees. I remember..." he inhaled a shuddering breath, "I remember the sun was coming up, and the frost was on the grass. There were...flowers..." he looked at her again, "Wild cherry trees."

Ukyo was still standing by the window, half her face awash in sunlight.

"You've lost a month," she said.

"No..."

"One month."

"No!" He shouted, and winced, leaning forward, hand flying to the bandages and the dull ache in his skull.

"What happened to me?" he asked helplessly.

"You have a hole," Ukyo said, "In your head."

Slowly he drew his hand away. He hesitated for a long, long time.

"Someone hit me?" he finally asked.

"No." Ukyo returned to the tea tray and carefully poured two fresh cups. "No. Somebody stabbed you."

Ryoga scrabbled at the futon, trying to throw it off, to stand, to _get up_, get _up_--his sudden burst of frantic motion startled Ukyo, but her face quickly hardened and she moved to grasp his shoulders tightly.

"What the hell are you _doing_, stupid?" she demanded.

"Doctor!" he gasped, "I need to see—"

"You've already _seen _one." Her steady voice belied the tension in her arms and shoulders as she struggled to remain steadfast in the face of his panic. "Dr. Tofu was here."

He hesitated. "Dr. Tofu?"

"Ranma called him. After I dragged you back here...I don't know. I freaked. I called Ranma first." She paused. "Sorry about that."

There was a moment where neither of them moved. Then, slowly, deliberately, Ryoga lifted his hands and closed them carefully around Ukyo's slim, delicate wrists. To her credit, she did not tremble, or draw back.

"I want to know," Ryoga ground through clenched teeth, "Why I am missing a _month _of my _life_."

"Then I'll bring him," Ukyo said simply, taking both her hands back and crossing her arms. "If _you _promise to _calm the hell down_ and I mean _now_, goddammit."

For a tense moment, Ryoga thought that he might argue. Ukyo met his angry gaze with her own fierceness, though, and he felt himself settle back before he'd even decided to do so.

"Good," she said, nodding her approval. "I'll call Dr. Tofu. _You _, do not _move _from this spot. Get me?"

"Yes, ma'am," he said automatically.

"Good boy." She slapped him on the shoulder and stood, patting off her butt in a very unladylike fashion. Only when she was outside the room, with the door shut quietly behind her, did she gently massage her wrists, biting her lip.

She'd seen that edge of terrible, bottomless panic flicker on his face, at the moment that he touched her. She'd felt the tension in the bones and tendons of his hands and the vibrations that weren't there, as he leveraged the entirety of his self-control into that single instant in order that his grip did not shatter her delicate bones. She'd felt it, and she'd seen it in his face, and a terrible fear had arisen in her at that moment. Because Ryoga was _strong_. And it was so ridiculous to think that because everyone knew it. They knew it so well they barely thought about it.

They barely thought about it at all.

--

When Ukyo left, Ryoga squeezed his eyes shut. A breeze was blowing in through the open window, bringing with it the noises of another street, some distance away, the sounds of human voices distorted and strange. A bird sang again, and when Ryoga opened his eyes a yellow butterfly, the kind most commonly seen in the countryside, had found its way inside and was flashing its wings in the half-lit room.

Tears were running down his face.

Slowly his hand crept up to touch the bandages again. Ukyo had said...he'd been _stabbed_. How could something like...but that was a risk in a martial artist's life, right? It was always a possibility that any one of them—himself, Ranma, Mousse, even Shampoo or Ukyo—could be killed, or maimed, or even crippled for life. It was just that, up until now, Ryoga had never really imagined it could happen to him.

"Oh _god_," he breathed.

The door slid back. Hastily he wiped his face and eyes.

"He'll be here in a few minutes." Ukyo's voice was all business. If she'd noticed the dampness on his face, she didn't show it. "He said for you not to worry, and to lie still."

Ryoga stared up at her. His chest rose and fell. In the stillness of the moment, the butterfly flew back out into the street.

--

_The stars remained steadfast._

_He thought maybe he should recognize this place. He thought maybe that he'd seen it before. But a lifetime on the road had seriously eroded his capacity for wonder, and these days all places looked pretty much the same to him anyway. Standing at the edge of the desert he could think only how cold it was at night, how black and distant the void overhead, how small and bright the stars._

_He thought of Akane. A thousand miles away, he supposed. Turning and looking back, there was little to see. The darkness of night, far from civilization, was something unfamiliar to most humans. Ryoga knew it, understood it's nature better than almost anyone else in this civilized age of technological marvels, but he couldn't help peering into the blackness anyway. Scrub and grasses were visible nearby, limned in moonlight, and on the horizon the dark shapes of hills rose against the sky and blotted out the stars._

_He could hear the wind in the trees, and far away the sound of the ocean in its eternal unrest._

_He dreaded to cross the desert at night. He feared to cross it during the day. Yet in the end he knew there was nothing else he could do, but go forward. There was never anything he could do, but go forward. Every place he came to was new, every place was the same. Nothing held any novelty, but nothing was familiar. Even in a place he'd visited a hundred times, even retracing his steps a thousand times, even backtracking on his own path in the wilderness or the city, it was impossible to get any kind of bearing._

_He went forward because nothing was ever, really, behind him. Because there was no place to remember because he_ couldn't _remember, not really. If he could he'd have found his way home by now, and stayed there._

_Always, always, he was going forward._

_He dropped his pack and sank to the ground. He thought vaguely about his bed roll, but he wasn't really feeling the cold, and no wind blew in this place. He looked up into the sky. The stars were like flowers, falling one by one._  
--

Ukyo stood in the doorway and watched the doctor walk away. She remained standing where she was for some time after he'd disappeared around the corner. She felt at a loss.

The doctor had promised to do everything in his power to help Ryoga. He'd promised to pore through his books, both ancient lore and modern medicine, for any reference to circumstances similar to the lost boy's. Ukyo knew he had a better chance than any merely ordinary doctor at the hospital, and tried to feel heartened at the doctor's promise, but a sinking feeling in her gut suggested that her hope was probably all in vain.

It wasn't that she was particularly close to Ryoga. She knew him, she considered, well enough that he was more that a passing acquaintance, but nowhere near to what she could consider qualified him as a _friend_ .

She went to the back and took some soup out of the pot she'd left on the burner, and prepared a tray. Really, she wanted Ryoga out of her restaurant and maybe back in his own home—assuming he even _had _one (_Does he have one?_)—or for some reason she could not quite define, perhaps at the Tendo's with Ranma. That place was the regular gathering ground for the weird and needy who seemed to congregate especially in Nerima for some reason beyond her philosophy to somprehend, so really it made _sense_, didn't it?

So why was he _here_?

Ultimately, it was because Dr. Tofu had asked her not to move him for a while. Ukyo was wholly irritated at the idea of being forced by circumstances to wait on the idiot boy hand and foot, but Dr. Tofu had such a subtle, gentle way of being _really really pushy..._

Balancing the tray in one hand, she gently slid open the door to the tatami room. The twilight silence within was a little eerie. She was again struck for a fraction of a second by the sense that Ryoga had brought something new and strange with him into her home. The young man was lying flat once again in the futon-- _her _futon, damn it all—chest rising and falling shallowly.

She scowled, at him and at the entirety of the ridiculousness that made up Hibiki Ryoga. It made absolutely _no sense _to her mind that someone so obscenely, inhumanly strong could lie there looking so _helpless_. Was it some kind of protective camouflage or something? Was it really, truly in his nature to be so weepy and fragile all the time? Because Ukyo couldn't remember having met another man who came anywhere near Ryoga's level of bizarre sensitivity. He was such a...such a...such a _girl _about things. And Ukyo really knew what she was talking about when it came to something like that.

Of course he also tended to be incredibly melodramatic about most things not having to do with girls, and was full of a kind of barely-controlled, pent-up anger that he only ever really unleashed around Ranma--which was fortunate, she considered, since anyone besides Ranma would not fare so well in a contest with Ryoga. In Ukyo's experience, though, when Ranma wasn't about Ryoga tended to be more or less a broody, day-dreaming idiot, defined entirely by his obsessive love for Akane. All that thick hair hanging in his face only served to exaggerate his permanent appearance of shadow-eyed moroseness.

Really the fact that he possessed the power to break rocks with his bare hands and blow buildings sky-high was almost incidental to his character.

Wasn't it?

She set the tray down with a clink. Ryoga's eyes snapped open and he sat up so fast Ukyo almost fell over. Her acid comment about doctor's orders died on her lips, though. Ryoga seemed to be staring at some distant point beyond the wall and his eyes were wide and unblinking.

Ukyo coughed delicately into her hand.

"Awake, I see," she said drily.

Ryoga's head turned. He blinked at her bemusedly, then croaked, "Uh...hi."

"Here," she thrust a bowl into his hands, nearly spilling soup all over him as he seemed at first unable to grasp what it was. "I made it," she informed him as, frustrated, she took firm hold of his wrist and forcibly closed his fingers around the bowl.

He looked down, then back at her.

"Why?"

"Because sick people eat soup!" she burst out, not wanting to go into the whole 'Oh, Ukyo, you're so unfeminine, you've never taken care of a sick person in your entire life' thing. "That's just how it is! All right?"

"Um," he looked down at the soup as if he'd never seen anything so exotic in all his years. "I'm not exactly sick..."

"You've got a great big hole in your head! What else would you call that? Huh, smarty?"

"A mild laceration?" he raised his eyebrows. "Dr. Tofu said it looks bad but it's just...superficial damage," he went on, flushing again (he seemed to do that a lot) and dropping his eyes. "It looks bad but it doesn't go deep...

It...what? Then why was he still in her bed?

Her eyebrows drew together as he started to set the soup aside, getting his legs under him in the same motion, preparing to stand.

Ukyo was faster. She shot to her feet with her fists clenched at her sides. The ends of her hair crackled with what was probably static electricity.

"You eat that soup right now you ingrate or by _god _I will chop you up into little tiny bite-size pieces and mix you into _all _of tomorrow's okonomiyaki batter, so help me!"

Ryoga's eyes widened at her outburst and he gaped at her for a fraction of a second before lunging for the soup and nearly inhaling it.

"Mm! It's good!" he squeaked. Ukyo gave him a grim smile and snatched the empty bowl from him.

"More, sugar?" she asked sweetly.

"Yes! Please!"

--

"Sauteed," she muttered to herself later on, "With garlic and onions…"

She'd shoved aside the boxes and piles of winter clothes she kept in the apartment's only other room, which she typically used for storage, and dragged the spare futon out of the closet. While she was on the floor having an asthma attack in the midst of the clouds of dust that exploded all around her like some sort of horrible Bomb Blast of Bad Housekeeping, Ryoga had wandered off aimlessly and Ukyo had to spend a good five minutes hunting him down before cornering him in the downstairs toilet. The unisex toilet—she didn't have room for anything fancier, and she just considered it a blessing he wasn't actually _standing in the water_. Only the fact that he'd seemed once again on the verge of panic and was sniffling alarmingly had stayed her hand, though it itched for the comforting, well-worn handle of her spatula.

"You were really born to be an invalid, weren't you sugar?" she inquired of the boy who was now sitting in the doorway as she squirreled her coat and kotatsu futon away in the closet. "Honestly, do you want me to lead you around by the hand for the rest of your life?"

"I've never been up here before, you know," he snapped from the doorway, shoulders hunched and looking miserable—something she knew damn well he spent too much time practicing. "It isn't like I always get lost _everywhere _, it's just that a new building is...hard.." he inhaled deeply, as if struggling to keep himself in check. "I mean, I hardly ever get turned around like that in my _own _house, or...or someplace I've been to a lot. I mean, outside is different but..."

"Oh yeah?" hands on hips, she turned fully to regard him. "Well, don't think you'll be here long enough to get to know this place that well."

"Why can't I leave _now _?" he whined pitiably. Ukyo growled at him.

"Doctor's orders, I said. Do you not _listen_? Or is that famous Hibiki ability to only hear what you want to kicking in?"

Ryoga made a face. Ukyo considered that she was being unnecessarily cruel to him, but, well...it was just really incredibly annoying to have him here, in her way, meandering around aimlessly. A thought occurred to her.

"And you'd better not wander downstairs tomorrow during business hours and scare all my customers with your big gross head wound and 'I am an amnesiac, woe is me!' routine!"

"Yes, Ukyo," he said in a small voice.

"And don't pull that 'emotionally-abused fragile wallflower' crap on me either! I'm not feeling guilty as long as you're here eating my food and—and breathing my air!"

"No Ukyo." This time his voice was even smaller. Ukyo gave a strangled scream and stomped out of the room, lifting a leg to step over him and just resisting the urge to kick him for good measure—it wasn't like it would hurt him any. Only out of the corner of her eye, because she was very deliberately _not _looking at him, did she catch the faint trace of a smirk forming around the edge of his mouth.

"With soy sauce," she muttered as she stormed down the hall, trying really hard to ignore the boy altogether, "and hot peppers. Yeah. That's good home-cooking!"

Ryoga sat on his hands and watched her walk away. He knew he'd never be able to explain the exact reason for his phobia about being chopped into little pieces and eaten—or served whole with a piece of fruit in his mouth, more likely. Ryoga probably feared apple-sauce the most of any condiment in the whole wide world. Otherwise he wouldn't have been so cowed back there with the soup, and now...well, he was pretty sure Ukyo wouldn't cannibalize him, but in the last year or so the possibility of being actually devoured had suddenly entered his life in a really big way, and he could never afford to overlook the prospect completely.

Sighing, he got to his feet. His head twinged—every time he _moved_, in fact—but he wasn't about to tell that to Ukyo, or to the good doctor. He realized Dr. Tofu's heart was in the right place, and that he personally bore Ryoga no ill will, but being trapped in Ukyo's tiny apartment, surrounded by the ever-present smell of okonomiyaki, it was a little difficult to bear that in mind.

Japanese cooks put ham in _everything_.

He walked carefully into the room, one hand to the side of his head. No-one was around, so he allowed himself this small concession to his injury. Really it didn't hurt exactly, it just felt...weird. Like that side of his skull might pop open or something, finally giving his brain the excuse it'd been looking for to leap out and run away, never to return. A vague image of a lump of gray matter vanishing into the sunset (or sunrise? Perhaps some kind of Japanese western?), flickered briefly across his inner eye, as he peered blearily around his new accommodations.

They weren't bad. He'd certainly had worse. The futon was sinfully dusty, though, and Ryoga really, really didn't think he could bring himself to try sleeping in the thing—not unless he wanted to die from asphyxiating on clouds of dust. He walked to the window and pushed it wide open, and the fresh smell of spring rushed into the room. Cherry blossoms hit him in the face. Ryoga scowled as he picked them off his eyelid and cheek, then ruffled his hair. More of the damn things fell to the floor and he stooped to pick them up, and almost pitched flat on his face as the world suddenly canted and spun.

He sat heavily on the floor and put his head between his knees until the spinning went away. He stayed that way for a while, his hands laced behind his neck, head bowed, and worried. Because maybe, just maybe, he really _did _need someone else's help. Even if it was Ukyo—the violent-ist, most shot-tempered girl he knew. And that...well, that was really saying a lot.

He let himself sniffle a little, though he knew he was being silly. Of course Ukyo could be mean, and nasty, and violent, but...so what? It wasn't like she could ever do him any real damage. It wasn't like he was in love with her, after all, so even her endless stream of insults didn't pack a lot of punch. And she wasn't a friend, not really, so…what did her opinion actually matter, then? And sure, she might hit...a lot...but so did just about every other girl he knew, and after all he was Hibiki Ryoga, inhumanly strong and impervious to explosions and just about everything except being whanged in the head by Ranma—how much damage could she really do it him?

He sat up, cautiously, and leaned his head against the cold wall. The chill was soothing and he shut his eyes, exhaling a long, long sigh. He was still alive, he had a place to stay—for a day or so, and if Ukyo was a bit...over-generous in handing out the hard knocks, well, compared to some of the things Ryoga had endured and survived, really she might as well have been flailing away at him with a feather...or a soft toy...or some other equally fuzzy thing...

His lips quirked up in a smile at the image, Ukyo with her arm out straight waving something soft and white and fuzzy at him in a comical and ineffectual way. Heh. She was so ridiculous. As if anything she could do would ever seriously harm the great...Hibiki...Ryo..g...

The cherry blossoms and dust rose gently as he thumped softly against the floor, and then drifted down to settle all around him.

When Ukyo came upstairs later to check on him, she was astonished to find him sleeping on the floor, curled up under the window and surrounded by…well, it was too stupid to credit but there _was _a tree in the lot just behind her restaurant.

Sighing in annoyance, she fetched a blanket from the closet in her room and draped it over the boy's still form. He grasped the blanket in both hands and burrowed under it until only the top half of his head was visible.

In spite of all her best intentions, Ukyo caught herself smiling.

--

_And moments pass, bright and alive, clear as the reflection of sunlight off a fragile surface, a moment in time. Millions of years pass in an instant to the heartbeat of the universe. All the eyes of the forgotten turn in the direction of the darkness at the heart of all things, and against the measure of eternity the time of the Universe is a moment, a flash of light reflected from a mote of dust as it drifts, gently, to the floor._

_Only much, much faster._

_In fact, it doesn't happen at all._

* * *


	2. Karuna

* * *

2: karuna (compassion) 

"Uh-uh. No. Nope. Absolutely no, no no _no_. You-- _out_."

"But—" Ryoga began.

"No! No 'buts', no nothing! I _told _you—didn't I _tell _you not to come down here already?" Ukyo glanced at the clock. Morning rush would start in no more than half an hour and here was this lost goober standing behind the counter-_her _counter—looking bemused and innocent and maybe a little forlorn.

The bastard.

"I _told _you," she gritted, grabbing his arm and hustling him up the stairs double time, "Stay outta the way!"

"But I'm _bored_!" he whined. Ukyo twitched.

"It's _five-thirty _in the damn morning! How the hell can have you had time to get bored? Shouldn't you be in _bed _convalescing or—or whatever!" It was too early to be clever in her haranguing. She'd try to come up with some better retorts for the next time she had to take this idiot on—maybe she'd compile a list and post it somewhere around the house. She stopped outside the room in which she'd installed the fanged maniac—not that the installation seemed to be holding.

"Hungry," he muttered, flushing all the way to the tips of his ears.

"What was that?"

"I'm _hungry_, okay? Jeez. If you tell me where you've hidden my stuff at least I can get something for breakfast—" he broke off at the look on her face. A moment of silence fell, and Ukyo realized she was studying floor a little too hard.

"No pack?" he asked, and when she raised her head it was to encounter an expression of someone whose entire world seemed to have dropped out from under him. Ryoga actually looked queasy.

Unsure what moved her to the action, she reached out and laid a hesitant hand on his arm.

"Sorry, sugar."

"This is just...I can't believe it." Ryoga slumped, looking defeated. His stomach chose that moment to gurgle alarmingly. Ukyo gave up.

"Okay okay," she said, planting her hands on his shoulders and gently shoving in the direction of her tatami room, "I'll...I'll bring you something up here, just get your ass back in that room and stay put, all right?."

"Thank you, Ukyo."

She sighed. "It's all right, sugar."

She had no intention of letting him come downstairs, where the customers would see him and be horrified by his unwashed appearance and permanently concussed expression. Instead she swallowed her pride and resolved to wait on him_ just this once,_ setting up the table in the corner and serving up a lovely okonomiyaki—without ham. Ryoga was very specific about that.

"I don't put ham in all my okonomiyaki, you know."

"How about bacon?"

"Um..."

"No, I mean seriously, is there some _reason _that every damn thing everywhere has _bacon _or _ham _in it? Because the last place I ate that served okonomiyaki served a salad first and there was a huge...a big p-pink slice of—of ham! Ham! In the salad! I mean, what the hell is wrong with people? Huh?"

He'd been frothing a bit at that point. Ukyo had offered a noncommittal shrug and beat a hasty retreat back to her counter. Maybe food mania was a side-effect of the head injury.

"Everyone I know is insane," she muttered, then raised her head with a bright smile as her first customer of the day pushed open the door.

"Welcome!"

--

Ryoga patted his stomach and leaned back. He had to admit, that girl was a mean cook—at least when it came to things that could be mixed and cooked on a griddle. He wondered vaguely what other cooking skills she might possess. At least the okonomiyaki had been all seafood and a raw egg. Ryoga liked the occasional raw egg. He knew they made Ranma gag. He grinned at the thought.

The strangeness in his head had receded for the moment. He still had a sense of…distance, maybe, as if there was something he was supposed to be remembering that wasn't important anymore, and he had an almost phantom sense of...of...

_...the world at rest._..

--of something he could not quite grasp, but which seemed, like a tiny voice in the very back of his mind, to whisper that every thing was going to be okay. He wondered at that, but only vaguely.

Ukyo came upstairs some minutes after the noise of the last customers departing had died away. She regarded the emptied plate and the jar of homemade sauce with a self-satisfied smile. She was a good cook but her overbearing personality could be a little too much for Ryoga to handle, especially now. He found himself involuntarily cringing as she smiled at him.

"Um...it was delicious," he said, voice cracking only slightly. "Really."

"Really?" she quirked an eyebrow, but to his surprise her expression softened slightly, losing some of the familiar sardonic expression which she typically wore when dealing with him. In spite of himself, Ryoga found himself smiling, hesitantly, and to his surprise and, he guessed, probably hers, she returned the smile.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it," she said, with typical un-Japanese candor—it would not have been unusual at that point for Ukyo to deride her own cooking, as many Japanese women did, but Ryoga supposed that sort of false humility was as alien to the girl as a skirt. He couldn't bring himself to feel too bothered about something like that. He spent most of his time out-of-doors, and squirrels and field mice were also not known for being terribly humble. Things just...were. That was normal.

Ukyo was like that (except for the bit about the field mouse, but he didn't intend to ever make that comparison within audible range anyway), just _being_. Except when it came to Ranma, of course, but that boy tended to warp the world and the minds of those around him like some kind of freaky human gravity well...he could hardly fault Ukyo for something like that. Even if it did make her emotionally weird.

"I can wash these for you," Ryoga said, starting to stand, picking up the plate, but Ukyo strode forward and snatched the plate and teacup from his hands before he had even risen halfway out of his seat.

"Don't be a bonehead," she snapped, "Sit down before you fall over again. "_I'll_ wash, you just...just sit and count the cracks in the ceiling, or something."

"Uh...okay?"

He saw her visibly force her shoulders to relax.

"Seriously, sugar, I don't even think you should be up walking around. I'm..." he raised both eyebrows as he saw her bite her lip, "I mean, you should be relaxing and watching my TV or something." She waved a hand vaguely at the little black box in the corner of the room. Ryoga'd pretty much ignored it up until now.

"I don't watch TV," he said mildy curious at this apparently sudden switch.

"Ryoga! Look, I'm used to...I mean I've lived here alone for months now, okay? I'm used to doing things my way. I know. Maybe it's kind of...maybe I'm being ungracious. I don't know..." she bit her lip and looked down, shifting from foot to foot in an uncharacteristically abashed expression. "I don't know."

"Um..." he wasn't sure what sort of response would be appropriate here. He _really _didn't know what to make of her not yelling at him.

"I mean," she said, sticking the glass on the plate and pushing a long strand of hair out of her face, "I mean I'm s-ss-ssor—rry, okay?" she didn't look around at him at that.

"For what?" he was genuinely curious.

"For being mean! For jumping all over you like..." she hesitated, then finished, "Just, sorry, all right?"

He wanted to ask what had brought this on, but wasn't sure even how to really frame the question. So he said nothing.

"…Ryoga?" her voice was weirdly hesitant.

"Ukyo, seriously, it's no big deal. I mean, you let me stay in your place and gave me food, and even called the doctor—I'd be a big jerk to be upset at you for...er, you know. Honestly I didn't think you were being...um, mean." Which was more or less the truth. 'Mean' was not the word he usually used to classify Ukyo's behavior toward him—'psychotic' came a bit closer, but missed out entirely on the opportunity to imply the omnipresent odor of okonomiyaki sauce.

She smiled.

"All right. I need to learn to be a little nicer anyway. You know, Ranma really doesn't have enough nice girls in his life..." she was smiling as she spoke, but inwardly Ryoga sighed. He understood now the reason for her sudden Attack of Graciousness.

"He's coming by after school, is he?"

She shrugged, not bothering to look shamefaced in the slightest. It wasn't that Ryoga'd imagined for a moment she cared about him—not as a person, not as a human being like Ranma—it was just a little irritating that she was so...one-dimensional about things like interpersonal relations. It seemed to be a basic characteristic of all Ranma's fiancées—he reflected on the way Shampoo treated Mousse, and his inward sigh became an inward flinch.

At least Ukyo hadn't been smacking him around, with the spatula or without it. Reflexively his hand went to his head. He noticed Ukyo's eyes widen.

"Does it...does it hurt?" she asked, and her tone surprised him.

"I..." he hesitated, then shook his head. Maybe some of that apology had been real, after all.

_Nothing hurts anymore._

"I was just thinking about...something else," he mumbled.

"Mm." Ukyo headed toward the hall. "Get back in that futon," she said over her shoulder, "I'll be back to check on you before I　leave."

--

Ryoga spent the day hanging around Ukyo's tiny two-roomed apartment above the restaurant. He tried watching the TV, but it was so unbelievably horrible he had to fight the urge not to fling the thing out the nearest window after twenty minutes. He resisted valiantly, however, as he suspected Ukyo's unusual reticence in beating him about the head would not survive the wanton destruction of her more expensive property.

He amused himself by hunting through the handful of books she owned. She was horribly practical—everything was about cooking or the restaurant business, with nary a femmy manga or bodice-ripping romance in sight. Not that Ryoga had really expected otherwise, but it would have given him an unlooked for chance to amuse himself by harassing her about something so obviously _female_, and he got a lovely warm glow just imagining it.

It wasn't, he reflected as he carefully and conscientiously restacked all her books as he'd found them, it wasn't as if Ukyo didn't _have _a personality. She did, he knew. She had it to spare, if anything. It was just that, like Shampoo and Kodachi, like any fiancée of Ranma's, she seemed to have missed out on some fundamental quality needed to really have any kind of _actual _relationship. Not that he was about to tell her something like that—not only would the consequences be painful, he really didn't want her spreading it around that he was more sensitive to these sorts of things than she was. It wasn't _his_ fault that his copious amounts of free time let him muse on human relationships more than a man probably ought to.

Ukyo _was _complex, he knew. Just because she didn't have any books lying about which would imply some sorts of unplumbed depths didn't mean she didn't _have _them. She probably kept a diary, and Ryoga only hoped that the inmost thoughts recorded there were a little more complicated than, "Ranchan + Ucchan, 2gether 4ever!" or something equally nausea-inducing.

And it wasn't that he didn't _like _Ukyo. Well, it wasn't much like that. It was just hard to comprehend someone who was so...so narrow-minded in her pursuits and interests. Was the the entire scope of her being defined by okonomiyaki and Ranma? It boggled the mind.

Sometime after four, the shop door rattled open and knew that she'd returned. He heard her mounting the stairs and he hurriedly dove back under the futon, pulling it up to his chin and trying to look convalesced.

If that was even grammatically correct.

She came to stand in the door and regarded him silently. After a moment he heard her clear her throat delicately.

"Come off it, Sleeping Beauty," she said, "We both know you're faking."

He cracked an eye.

"I was asleep," he protested, "I mean, when I heard you coming I-I woke up, of course, but I didn't want you to be m—to worry about me, so I, I shut my eyes again, just for a moment..." he was babbling, he knew. Women, even Ukyo—in fact Ukyo possibly more than anyone else—often had that effect on him. She stood in the doorway with an inscrutable expression on her face.

"Sure, sure," she said finally, waving away his babble as he wound down, "Whatever you say." She entered the room and leaned her schoolbag in the corner. "I'm just thrilled beyond belief to see that the place is in one piece and you haven't wandered off into the wilderness or some damn thing."

In spite of himself, he quirked a smile. What was that, twice in one day? Had to be some kind of record...

Ukyo sighed internally as she regarded this ridiculous person. Since Ranma had popped his head in this morning on his way to school and announced his intentions to stop by in the afternoon, she'd been feeling a bit bad for the way she behaved toward Ryoga. Sure, the guy was a nuisance and a pain in the neck, but...her overwhelming reaction to Ranma, the sense of warmth and love and hope that had surged in her chest at the moment he looked at her, contrasted so incredibly sharply with how she felt when she talked to Ryoga that she'd felt something almost alien to her.

She'd felt guilty for beating up on Ryoga.

Because maybe, just maybe, it was unfair.

"Poor Ryoga," Akane called him. Well, Ukyo had never thought of him that way—the guy was tough as...well, tougher than anything human had a right to be, tougher than _any _living thing really had a right to be. And therein was the conundrum, because internally he was probably the most fragile, sensitive person she'd met in her entire life.

It was possibly what drove her to such lengths of violence when dealing with him, as a matter of fact. Ukyo thought of her own inner-being as stone-hard, a kind of emotional counterpart to Ryoga's physically unbreakable form. She was tough and capable, independent and fierce, a survivor who didn't take crap from anyone and wasn't afraid of pain or violence, and could give as good as she got in the matter of pursuing her true love, if it came to a conflict of wills or a test of martial capacity. A person as emotionally delicate as Ryoga was almost...offensive to her. She had a hard time not bullying him.

But it _was _bullying, wasn't it?

Well...maybe. But she didn't react this way to Ranma or Akane or anyone else, and no matter how much he got under her skin simply by _existing_, it didn't seem entirely fair. And Ukyo liked to think of herself as basically a good person.

That was what it came down to, really. Not for Ryoga, but for _herself_. She could learn to be nicer.

It would only be for a day or two, right?

"So," she queried lightly as she unhooked her work clothes from the door of her closet, "Did you have a nice day?"

Ryoga stared at her in utter incomprehension. Ukyo sighed. She hadn't really been so bad that simple conversation left him flat-footed, had she?

"It's a simple question, boyo," she stated flatly, one hand on her hip, the other holding her okonomiyaki uniform just above the floor. "Yes? No? Maybe? Did you have a good time rummaging through my things?"

"Er—" Ryoga couldn't hide the telltale flicker of his eyes, and Ukyo, in spite of all her best intentions, felt a stab of anger.

"You _actually _rummaged through my things? What are you, a trainee Happosai?"

"No! No, I didn't, I just," he held up one hand in a warding gesture, and waved the other vaguely at her little bookshelf in the corner, "I just looked at some of your books, is all."

"Oh." She deflated a bit. "Okay." She didn't want to admit to feeling slightly miffed that her most intimate possessions held no interest for the young man currently occupying her futon—the other having proved too dangerous with its wandering tribes of dust bunnies to really be any good for sleeping, and which was now airing on the balcony. And she felt annoyed with herself that nothing the boy did sat quite right with her. Jeez, was she really _that _snippy and unreasonable?

"I'm going to go downstairs and fire up the grill," she said, trying to maintain a level tone and not let the usual edge of irritation she typically spoke with when talking to Ryoga creep into her voice. "You can...you can come down, if you want. I mean, we don't want you getting bedsores, do we?"

Ryoga made a face at that, and Ukyo silently congratulated herself as she exited the room for having successfully completed an entire conversation without resorting to violence or even any real insults.

Really, it was an aspect of herself she didn't like at all.

Ryoga watched her go, feeling a bit gob-smacked. He wondered if his head-wound was acting up again. What other possible explanation was there for Ukyo's sudden niceness?

Oh, wait. That's right—Ranma was coming by. Ryoga debated going to bed for real this time, but considered that some other company would be welcome—a man could only tolerate Ukyo's dulcet tones and gentle ways for so long before going completely off the deep end. Ryoga threw off the futon and got up, standing only a little unsteadily, spreading his toes out and tying to get a feel for being fully upright. He still didn't feel completely _normal_, somehow. He wasn't sick, he was just...something felt off, still. For a moment the world seemed strange and far-away, and Ryoga's vision blurred slightly. He blinked hard.

_...the stars remain..._

He went downstairs and found Ukyo chatting with a young, dark-haired girl. Ukyo turned when she saw him come downstairs, and the other girl also looked at him, smiling brightly.

"Ryoga," the girl said. He gave a slightly hesitant smile of his own. The girl was kind of pretty, in a very ordinary way, with big eyes and pale skin. She wore the uniform of a Furinkan High student and had her hands folded under her chin, elbows resting on the counter.

"Hello," he said, settling on a stool, "Are you a friend of Ukyo's?"

The girl's smile froze. Then she looked at Ukyo, who seemed temporarily robbed of her powers of speech—if such a thing were even possible. Ryoga looked back and forth between them, hesitant smile still in place, wondering what the problem was.

"Have we met?" he asked, wondering if that was the problem—there were so many girls at Ranma's school, and Ryoga had spoken to a few of them before, but had hardly been able to learn all or even most of the names. He scooted a little closer on his stool. "I'm Hibiki Ryoga. It's nice to—"

"Tendo," the girl from Furinkan croaked, "T-Tendo Akane."

"Well," he said, smiling a little more broadly, "It's nice to—"

"Tendo _Akane _!" She slammed a hand down on the counter for emphasis, and the various condiments and napkins jumped with the force of her blow. Ryoga jumped too, leaning back slightly.

"Um, that's...n..." he trailed off, unsure what to say. He had the sense he was committing some terrible blunder here, but for the life of him he couldn't imagine what it was. He looked helplessly at Ukyo, who regarded him with wide eyes. He saw her eyes flicker, just for a moment, to the bandages around his head.

He licked his lips.

"Um," he said, "Um, I'm...sorry, I hope I haven't upset you in any—" but he broke off as the girl pushed away from her stool, almost stumbling as her feet met the floor, reaching down to grasp her bag and backing toward the door in one motion.

"Excuse me!" Tendo Akane blurted, and rushed from the restaurant. Ryoga had risen halfway from his own seat and he paused, now, for a long moment before settling back down.

He looked at Ukyo again. The girl didn't seem to have moved since the last time he'd glanced her way.

"What just happened?" he asked.

--

Akane sat on the bench and wiped at her eyes, again and again. She didn't know why she was crying. She just didn't _know _. It was...it didn't make sense. Seeing Ryoga like that...obviously something had been wrong. Of course something was wrong. She didn't even need to see the white bandages, wrapped around his head, half-concealed by his thick hair like some ugly mockery of his usual bandana. Just catching his gaze was enough.

Something was wrong. Something deep and fundamental was hideously, hideously wrong.

It wasn't, Akane knew, as if you could really see a person's soul mirrored in their eyes. That kind of talk was just stupid, poetic nonsense, a kind of shorthand for describing how things were in real-life by reducing them to metaphor. But there'd been something in his face, in his voice, in his posture...or rather there hadn't been. Something. Something basic and fundamental to her friend. Some missing spark, some point of focus, had vanished from the depth of his being. When he'd looked at her, there's been a quality of distance to his gaze she didn't remember ever seeing there. In anyone.

She wiped her cheeks again with the back of her hand and rummaged angrily for her handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes as she thought about it.

No. It wasn't simply a change in the way he'd looked at her. It was there when he turned his eyes to Ukyo, it was there when he jumped with the force of her blow on the counter. It was something real. It was…

What was it?

She swallowed, then stood, brushing off her skirt and clenching her fist around the handkerchief. Then she turned, to the direction opposite Ucchan's, and walked away.

--

"I _what_?" Ryoga's incredulous voice was followed by a sound Ukyo couldn't remember having ever heard before—not when it wasn't in some way maniacal, or cracked around the edges.

Ryoga was laughing. It wasn't overly loud—it seemed natural, almost, and dissolved from amused genuine guffaws to quiet chuckling as he played with the sticks of sugar in the drinks condiment holder closest to him.

"You _do_," Ukyo insisted, feeling more than a little ridiculous for even having this conversation, "You _love _her, you goob, you've been in love with her for...well, for as long as I've known you."

Ryoga grinned at her. Ukyo almost flinched in the radiance of his expression. It didn't suit him at all. He pointed the sugar stick at her.

"You're messing with me."

"I most certainly am--"

"You completely are! Ohh, let's screw with the poor amnesiac, he won't know the difference. C'mon! It'll be fun!" His grinned broadened, showing both sharp fangs, and Ukyo fought a sudden urge to step back. Gritting her teeth, she stepped forward instead.

"Look, you," she growled, "Why would I lie about something like that? And why would Akane go running out of her like that, if she wasn't upset about something?"

"She knows I 'love' her?" Ryoga asked, eyebrows raised and invisible under his heavy bangs. Ukyo hesitated.

"Well, no..."

"Then why would she be so upset?" He waved a dismissive hand. "She probably--she probably left the toaster on or something. I mean, I think if I was in _love _with someone, I'd damn well remember. Jeez."

"Idiot!" Unable to contain herself, she reached across the counter and flicked his ear.

"OW! Hey!"

"Oh, I'm soo sorry. Does the _amnesia patient_ with the _gaping head wound_ have something to say?"

"I'm _fine_," Ryoga growled, massaging his offended ear, "I don't have _amnesia_."

"Uh, duh, what about that missing month?"

"That's different. That's—I was probably abducted by aliens or something! That's the kind of thing that happens to me all the time. And there's no such thing as—as selective amnesia anyway!"

"Oh, so? And would you care to show me your university degree licensing you to practice as a doctor specializing in neuropathology? No? Oh, that's _right_, you don't _have one_. You don't know jack about shit, buddy, admit it!"

"What does that have to do with anything? Just because I don't know everything there is to know about—about _brain science_ doesn't mean I don't know my own mind! If I say I've never seen her before then—"

"Do you think she's pretty?" Ukyo said softly.

"I—what?"

"Akane. Did you think she was pretty, when you saw her just now?"

Ryoga shrugged. "I barely saw her for ten seconds. How should I know?"

"Think, dammit! You saw her just now, what was the first thing you thought? Did you think she was pretty?"

Ryoga looked up at the ceiling, eyes squinching half-closed as he thought.

"I just--she seemed average. Just...average. Normal. You know?"

"You've spent the last eight months chasing around after her."

"Bull."

"Oh yes! It's true! Whether you believe me or not doesn't make it any less true, so you'd better just accept it!"

"No! This is stupid!" Ryoga stood up at the stool, leaning forward with his hands pressed against the wooden section of the counter. "I can't have just forgotten—just forgotten _one _person! How could that even _happen? _I remember you! I remember Ranma, and I remember...I remember Shampoo, and even Kodachi, and, and Kuno and Cologne and Mousse, for crying out loud, I can remember all these other people—how could I just forget some—some _girl _I'm supposed to be in _love _with? You must really think I'm the stupidest person alive!"

Ukyo bit back her first response. She clamped her jaw shut and narrowed her eyes at Ryoga. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright, but the rest of the color had pretty much gone from his face, and if he collapsed Ukyo didn't think she could make it across the counter in time to catch him before he hit the floor.

"Sit down," she said in a low voice, "before you rupture something." Ryoga glared at her for a moment.

"I'm not in love with her," he muttered as he finally, blessedly, resumed his seat. Ukyo took a few cleansing breaths.

"I don't even know her," Ryoga went on. Ukyo pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I," she told him, "Am not going to argue with you about this right now. In fact," she went on, coming around the counter, "I'm escorting your lost butt upstairs and back to bed for the time being."

"'M fine," Ryoga mumbled, staring at the counter, head lower than it would normally be, and Ukyo smiled grimly, without a trace of amusement.

"Come on," she said, tugging him by the arm. He got unsteadily to his feet and Ukyo reflected that it was probably sheer stubbornness that kept him from swaying even slightly.

"Lean on me," she said.

"I don't—"

"Do it!" She didn't shout, but filled her voice with so much sheer granite resolve that Ryoga did as she'd said without another word. She let out a faint "uff!" as his arm contacted her shoulder; he was heavy, but she'd expected no less.

"I'm putting you to bed," she said simply. "And then I'm calling the Doctor."

Ryoga had his eyes shut, and this time he didn't argue with her.

* * *


	3. Anicca

* * *

3: anicca (impermanence) 

The sound of his heartbeat.

Low voices.

He opened his eyes.

They were talking about him, he knew. Downstairs, Ukyo, Ranma and the doctor were in quiet conference, using the kind of muffled, low and serious voices that befitted the discussion of a patient within the house. Ryoga, lying on his side with his ear pressed to the pillow, had less difficulty discerning the noise of the blood pulsing in his throat than in making out the strange and distorted voices of the people that he knew, muffled by the floor and the walls.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been stuck in a bed for the length of time he'd been forced to endure here. It was nearly _two days_ now, and unless a miracle occurred it was looking as if it would probably be three, or even four. Four days! It was unthinkable. With a grunt of dissatisfaction, he rolled onto his back and fixed his eyes on Ukyo's ceiling.

It wasn't that he never, ever got sick. It didn't happen often, but he'd had the flu a couple times in his life, and every few years when he was traipsing around the wilderness in winter he caught some kind of cold or throat infection or something. It happened, and was just a part of life. Ryoga knew that spending so much time so far from civilization meant that he didn't have any real way to comprehend how most people thought about illness—for them a cold meant staying indoors, hot tea (and probably soup, he mused, if Ukyo's spastic reaction yesterday had been any clue), and maybe baths and…things like that. He wasn't exactly sure what it all entailed, because it was part of a world he knew almost nothing about. Day-to-day living amidst _people_ was something he experienced rarely, and since his childhood he'd gotten farther and farther away from that way of doing things, until the edge of memories dulled and faded and lost their brilliance, like newspaper clippings pressed between the pages of a book. It wasn't simply that he didn't _know_. It was like a foreign country to him. It would have been the same if he'd been air-lifted out of Japan and dropped in the middle of São Paolo—a possibility he didn't entirely discount in his life anyway. There were standards and behaviors he couldn't even begin to comprehend which other people understood intrinsically; he was a tourist in cities and in the countryside, a visitor from the wilderness of solitude to the world of ordinary men and women.

He sat up with a sigh and rubbed the back of his neck and the base of his skull. Downstairs they were still talking, though he couldn't imagine about what. This whole thing with that girl (Aka...Akane? Yes, he was sure that was right.) seemed to have upset them all a lot more than it had done him. Of course he'd gotten irritated at Ukyo, for ranting and raving at him about something so patently ridiculous—he didn't think he could be faulted for reacting like that. How would she like it if he'd grabbed some man at random off the street and declared that in fact she'd been in love with him for months and months, whether she remembered him or not?

It was against all logic. Ryoga knew he'd lost almost four weeks, but what she was suggesting was simply too incredible for him to seriously consider. He gave a brief, weak chuckle and massaged his temples. He was in love with some girl he'd never met. _Right_.

Dr. Tofu had been noticeably concerned, though. What did it all mean? The doctor seemed to have his feet planted pretty firmly on the earth; it did seem really unlikely, Ryoga had to admit, for him to have been suggesting what he'd been by his line of questioning if there wasn't...something to Ukyo's bizarre assertion.

"But it's _impossible_," he said, though not too loudly—he got the distinct impression that the three people downstairs considered him to be some kind of invalid (Ukyo had certainly said as much, loudly and repeatedly) and apparently mentally unstable—maybe even a danger to himself. Helpless, anyway, since they were keeping him stuck here despite all his protests.

Well, he would see about _that_. But shouting and breaking stuff wouldn't help his case any at this point, even if it was usually how he got things done.

The doctor had asked gentle questions in an apparently light tone. Was it true that he couldn't recall ever meeting Akane? Did he remember Ranma? How about Shampoo? Mousse? Could he remember how he met Ranma? Yes? What about the day he first came to Furinkan? Yes, there had been a fight...yes, and there was a girl...no, actually, there _was_ a girl, and she'd had long hair at the time. No, no, Ranma had mentioned it sometime after the incident. Yes, the girl was Tendo Akane. No, no, _Akane_.

It _felt_ very much like a conspiracy, but what possible reason could a bunch of people largely connected only by their relationship to Ranma have in wanting Ryoga to think he was in love with some girl? And what was the girl's relation to Ranma? Because there obviously _was_ one; every time Dr. Tofu brought up Ranma it seemed a foregone conclusion that this Akane person was somehow linked to him at the hip.

The whole thing just sounded really, really weird.

Ryoga got up carefully, twisting his clothes around into some semblance of respectability, patting himself down and tucking in his shirt. He left the room and cast about, but there was only one set of stairs, at the end of the hall, and making his way down them was not as difficult as he had feared.

At the foot of the stairs he stopped, and waited as the quiet, intense conversation died and three pairs of eyes turned in his direction. The restaurant was half-lit by the sunlight pouring in through the open doors and windows, and the noise of people going to and fro on the street was audible, though Ukyo's _noren_ was propped against the wall inside.

"Um," Ryoga said, with a little shamefaced bob of the head, "...hi."

Their expressions ranged from a kind of sickly smile—Ukyo's—through slack-jawed idiotic gaping, to a self-contained look of gentle concern—the doctor's. Ryoga's eyes gravitated to Ranma's face, if only because he was seemed to be having the most, well, _normal_ reaction.

Normal for him, anyway.

"Damn it all, Ryoga!" That was Ukyo, leaping to her feet and smacking her hands on the counter, "You are supposed to be in _bed_!"

Why?" Ryoga asked simply. "You thought me being up was okay this morning. Hell, I thought I was getting _out_ of here this morning."

She opened her mouth at that, and shut it again. Then she said, "Things have changed."

"_Why_?" he demanded.

"Because you're sick and stuff, man," Ranma interjected, laying a placating hand on Ukyo's arm as she bristled. Ryoga's eyebrow went up at that. Ukyo _was_ Ranma's fiancée, after all. Maybe things were finally starting to work out between them.

"I don't _feel_ sick," Ryoga said mildly, entering the restaurant proper and settling on a stool around the corner of the counter from where the other three were seated. "I _feel_ just fine."

"So what?" Ukyo snapped, "You're not the judge of how healthy you are!"

Ryoga looked at Dr. Tofu, who was regarding him placidly. It was Ranma who spoke up.

"Is it true, though, what Ukyo said?"

"Is what true?"

"That you've forgotten all about Akane, about..."

Ryoga sighed. He _wanted_ to fling his hands up in the air in exasperation, but restrained himself with some difficulty. He hoped his eyelid didn't start twitching or anything with all this unhealthy emotional suppression.

"I don't know exactly _what_ is going on," he said after a moment in which everyone seemed to be waiting for him to speak. He saw Ranma fidgeting with an unopened pack of disposable chopsticks, printed with the _Ucchan's_ logo and business hours. "Everyone seems to know—or to be telling me something that I don't know and I can't—I can't _believe_ it. I mean, I really, _really_ can't fit it into my head."

"Well, I'm having a real hard time with the idea that you don't—don't l...lll—"

"Love," Ukyo supplied.

"Right. That. I mean that you ain't chasin' after Akane n'stuff—it just…it's not right, y'know? I mean it's, well—it's _weird_, man."

"Weird," Ryoga repeated, flatly.

"Yeah."

Was it his imagination, or had Ranma actually _flinched_ when Ryoga spoke?

What the hell was going on? Was he...were they...

Were they _afraid_ of him? Or if not of him, then of something he might do...or not do?

A small snort of laughter escaped him. In another time he'd have given his right arm to have Ranma fear him. Now, though...

"I guess it is," Ryoga agreed quietly, "I guess everything is getting...I mean everything's gotten weird, hasn't it?"

"Yeah," Ukyo agreed. Ryoga's shoulders slumped, and he sighed.

"How do you know Akane, anyway?" he asked, looking up at Ranma. The question seemed to leave the pig-tailed young man momentarily unable to speak. He opened his mouth, and shut it again.

"Ukyo?" Ryoga looked to his erstwhile rescuer in a gesture of helplessness that was becoming a little more familiar than he liked. The long-haired girl was gaping at him too; maybe the question was too complicated to have an easy answer.

"Er...doctor?"

Tofu pushed his glasses up his nose again—a nervous gesture, Ryoga suspected--and cleared his throat.

"She's Ranma's fiancée."

None of the three seemed prepared for Ryoga's reaction, and the two younger martial artists leapt clear out of their seats when Ryoga exploded with laughter. The lost boy, for the second time that day, was unable to control himself and had to wipe the tears from his eyes as his frame shook with genuine amusement.

"I—" he gasped, pointing first at Ranma, "I'm supposed to be in love with your f--f--_fiancée_--" he choked, and then pointed at Ukyo, "But not _this_ one—"

"Hey!" Ukyo bridled.

"And not _Shampoo_--"

"Uh—" Ranma's eyes were wide.

"—and not even K-K-_Kodachi!_ In fact, in _fact_, according to everyone _here_, I've got the hots for some girl I've only ever laid eyes on for maybe _two minutes_ in my entire life, and you're sitting there saying _I'm_ the one who has a problem?" He wiped his eyes again, shoulders shaking.

"Yes," Ukyo said flatly, "we are."

"Oh, _man_," Ranma breathed as he slid back on to his stool.

"This is really bad," Ukyo said in an aside to Ranma. Ryoga sniffed.

"I'm sitting right here, you know," he informed them coolly.

"Mr. Hibiki, I think it's fair to say that your...mirth...strikes us as a bit misplaced at this time," the young doctor said, frowning slightly, and Ryoga suddenly felt as if he'd been caught in the middle of doing something he shouldn't have, withering under the gaze of the stern headmaster. He ducked his head, a little shamefaced.

"What...um, what should I do...now?" he asked meekly, hunching his shoulders and peering at the bespectacled man.

"Well, a good start would be not walking around when you should be in bed. Miss Kuonji is absolutely right—it is not up to you to judge when and even if you should be on your feet, for any length of time," the doctor said mildly, though there was a stern edge to his voice.

"Oh," Ryoga hesitated, then added, "...sorry?"

"Indeed."

"You're being pretty glib for a guy in your condition," Ukyo said acidly, leaning forward. Ranma nodded fervent agreement.

"_What_ condition? Jeez, okay, I'm willing to accept on—on _principal_ that maybe, just maybe, I've," he waved his hands about, describing a shape in the air, "I've fallen through a-a hole into some kind of alternate dimension where I'm in love with _your_ fiancée—"

"Ryoga," Ranma said.

"But other than that I just don't see how—what?"

"We're worried about you, man."

Ryoga blinked rapidly, two or three times. A silence fell in the half-dark restaurant. Outside, people passed by on private errands and the murmur of voices and clattering of feet was audible.

Ryoga looked down at his hands. A long moment passed.

Finally, in a quiet voice, he said, "I'm not crazy."

"Nobody said you were—" Ukyo began, but Ryoga cut her off.

"You don't have to say it! You keep giving each other these meaningful looks and—and being obnoxiously secretive down here, like I shouldn't hear what you're talking about—"

"Mr. Hibiki, I think you should calm down."

"I just can't accept what you're saying!" This time he did fling his hands up, and didn't fail to notice both Ranma and Ukyo flinch at the sudden gesture.

"You people—I swear. Look, I'm the same—I mean I'm just _me_. Why do you want to dump—to put this on me? What does it matter if I'm in love with this person or not? So what if I can't remember her? If she's your fiancée you should be thrilled, not being all squirrelly about it. Ranma, Ukyo, doctor—" he met their eyes, trying to appeal to them, but they simply stared back with expressions too difficult to really discern in the half-light.

"You know what?" he said irritably, pushing back from the counter, "I think I _will_ go back to bed." He pointed at them and narrowed his eyes, "but you'd better not make any plans or decisions about what's going to happen without at least _talking_ to me about it. Okay?"

"Um. All right," Ukyo said slowly, then hesitated before adding, "If you're looking for the stairs you need to turn around, sugar."

"Oh." He looked around. "Heh. Right."

Trying to maintain an attitude of righteous indignation, shoulders squared and back straight, he marched up the stairs, turned sharply to the left, and promptly ran into the wall.

--

"Well," Ukyo said after Ryoga had disappeared and the thumping and cursing from upstairs had abated somewhat, "What do we think about _that_?"

Ranma said, "Looks, it's not like—well I mean even on his best days Ryoga's not exactly what I'd call 'normal'".

"True," Ukyo mused.

"And he seemed pretty calm—I don't know how I'd react in his place. And he wasn't screaming his head off about vengeance or tryin' to kill me or nothing'--"

"Out of character, if you ask me."

"Well, yeah..."

"I thought he was trying really hard to control himself," Ukyo said, tracing a pattern on the surface of the counter and looking into the middle distance as she contemplated the little scene that had just played out. She looked at the doctor.

"What'd'you think, doc?" she asked.

"Well," the young doctor pushed his glasses up his nose again, an unnecessary gesture since they were already as high as they would go, "Well, it's difficult to know at this point what the best course of action is. I'd thought to move him to my clinic and I still think that may be the best solution, but I can't imagine—"

"Ryoga'd never say yes," Ranma put it. "'s no way."

"So I thought as well," the doctor concurred. "But sending him to the hospital seems pointless since this seems more mystical or spiritual or perhaps mental in nature, and there are simply no facilities in Tokyo which are prepared treat someone like Mr. Hibiki. The actual injury is incredibly minor—a mild skin laceration at worst, with no sign of concussion." He sighed lightly.

"Mental?" Ukyo laced her long fingers and looked hard at the man.

"It's difficult to make a clear diagnosis at this point. The field of psychiatry…well, lets just say much of the human mind remains largely a mystery, despite the great strides have been made. But with that injury on the side of his head, I tend to feel that it's necessary to leave open all possibilities, and not simply say that your friend is suffering from, say, a stress-induced fugue or some sort of amnesia. Otherwise hospitalization _would_ be my first course of action. But I honestly don't believe this to be simply a normal affliction as you would find outside of the...special world inhabited by the two of you and Mr. Hibiki, and all the others."

He paused, apparently considering, then said, "I would like to observe him further, but the fact is he hardly seems to be treating this situation with the gravity it warrants."

Ukyo nodded, lips pursed. She looked at Ranma, who shrugged.

"Ryoga not bein' depressed or tryin' to kill me is too weird, man," he said, and Ukyo nodded. "And _laughin'_...I guess maybe I should feel glad he ain't chasin' after Akane, but it just...this is _wrong_. It's just flat-out, totally wrong. I keep thinkin'...like he looks like Ryoga an', an' talks like him, but maybe deep down…like that isn't really Ryoga at all."

"Yeah," Ukyo agreed softly.

The doctor looked grave. He said, "Ukyo, Ranma, I'd like your help. I want to move Mr. Hibiki to my clinic for observation and some tests, but I don't know if he'd willingly do so at my insistence. It seems that he _does_ believe himself to be well and healthy. Perhaps, though, he might listen to you."

Ranma snorted. "Ryoga's never listened to a thing I told him," he said, waving a hand dismissively.

"He'll listen to me," Ukyo said grimly. She cracked her knuckles. "If he knows what's good for him."

"I must really ask you to refrain from any unnecessary use of violence," Dr. Tofu nearly squeaked.

"Unnecessary, sure," Ukyo muttered. Ranma didn't grin, but Ukyo could tell it was a near thing.

"Then," the doctor said, standing, "I leave it in your hands. I'll be waiting at the clinic—please bring him as soon as possible. Before the end of the day, if you're able."

"Yes, doctor," the teenagers chorused. With a smile and a few final words of parting, the doctor excused himself, leaving Ranma and Ukyo alone in front of the counter.

"This has been _so_ bad for business," Ukyo grumbled, turning to lean her elbows on the counter. "I had to turn off the sign and bring the curtain in so we could talk, and I don't think I'll be putting it back out the rest of the night. Dammit!"

"Well, I know the two of ya don't exactly get along or nothin', but don't be so pissed at him, all right? He probably really can't help what's goin' on."

"Oh, I know." Ukyo sighed heavily. "He's just so damn _irritating!_" she straightened her arms, pushing to her feet in one swift, sharp motion. Ranma stood up too.

"So it's operation 'convince Ryoga to really go to the doctor,' right?" he asked, hands in pockets.

"Ayup."

"Let's go."

They clattered up the stairs together, and Ukyo tried to ignore Ranma's closeness, just behind her, completely casual and comfortable in her presence. She ground her teeth. She was tough. She was strong.

She was his stand-up gal.

"Ryoga!" she roared as she slammed aside the door to her room, and froze. Behind her, Ranma swore under his breath. The smell of late spring filled the little room and the curtains stirred gently in the breeze. She could hear birds outside, and the ever-present noise of the street and the neighborhood all around. A woman was calling somewhere, the name of her son over and over.

"I'm not sure if I should even be surprised," Ranma said from the doorway, as Ukyo walked disbelieving into the empty room. Her feet felt light, as if she barely touched the floor.

"Check next door," she said through gritted teeth. "Check the other room! Now!"

She leaned out the window and peered into the lot behind her shop as the sound of Ranma sliding the other door open and calling Ryoga's name in a half-hearted way filtered into her consciousness. But she already knew. She already knew.

She _already knew_.

"Shit!" she spun on her heel and met Ranma coming out of the other room. Together they dashed downstairs and out into the street without a word between them. Outside, Ukyo slammed her front door shut with a clatter, thrust one arm straight to the left and said, "You, go that way! I'll go this way—call Nabiki, Akane, call everyone you can because if we don't find him he could wind up in god-damned Yokohama, or _worse_! We have to cover ground faster than him, we have to look everywhere!"

"Call the doctor," he told her, but she shook her head.

"No time! We need a search party, not an inquisitive physician!" And without another word she spun away and dashed down the street, pounding her heels into the asphalt as she ran.

_Damndamndamn_. Her jaw throbbed from the force with which she was grinding her teeth together, and her throat worked from resisting the urge to shout out the lost boy's name, because she needed the energy for running. Instead, bunching the muscles in her legs, calling up the nearly-banked fires that fueled her battle aura, she leapt clear from the ground onto a roof and sprinted along the heavy tiles, blood pounding in her ears.

_He's going to get lost, _her traitorous inner voice wailed, _He'll get lost, he's_ already _lost and--and it's all_ my fault!

_And why the hell do I care anyway?_ She mentally snarled at herself, grabbing that voice in the back of her mind and throttling it until it whimpered for mercy. _I'll_ kill _him when I find him! _

_I'll kill him!!_

--

Customers in the Nekohanten were generally a rambunctious lot. Right now, however, only a small group of students were congregated in the corner, and Akane was grateful for the relative quiet this provided. She stared at her hands in her lap. She was still clad in her powder-blue high-school uniform and couldn't help feeling plain and ordinary seated across from Shampoo, resplendent in her usual Chinese silks that nevertheless seemed far from ordinary even on her worst days—something in deep green today, trimmed with gold, sprinkled with tiny flowers like stars.

Akane cleared her throat and looked at old Cologne from under her lashes. The matriarch was _hmming_ to herself as she considered the strange news Akane had brought. Really, Akane wasn't sure if the old grandmother would do anything—or even why she should particularly want to. If it were Ranma, of course there would be no question whatsoever. Ranma forgetting Akane would be a cause for celebration and dancing in the streets; Ranma forgetting Shampoo would warrant the mobilization of all the mystical forces the woman had at her command, possibly moving heaven and earth to unwork the effects of whatever spell or trick had so benighted the young man. As for Ryoga...well, honestly Akane thought the old woman probably couldn't care less, but where else could she turn for help at a time like this?

Finally Cologne cleared her scratchy throat.

"It disturbed you greatly, his reaction?" she asked without preamble. Akane blinked.

"He didn't really—I mean, um, I guess it b-bothered me a bit." She was rubbing the back of her left hand with the thumb of her right, pushing the skin over the knuckles and tendons. "Ryoga's always...he's always been so nice to me...I guess he—I mean I know he and Ranma fight a lot, but I think, deep down, that they're really good friends. Either one would stick up for the other, if they really needed hep. And I've always...I've come to think of Ryoga as my friend too, I guess." She looked up. The old woman _hmmm'd _again, tapping her tiny fingers on her long stick.

"And he had no clear recognition when he looked at you?"

She shook her head. "It wasn't just that. He started to introduce himself. He d-didn't know me at _all._"

Shampoo, sitting across from her, was uncharacteristically silent, a slight crease in her porcelain brow, lips pressed together in something like a frown. Akane couldn't understand her reaction; typically Shampoo and Ryoga barely interacted at all, except when the girl needed some poor soul to torture in her endless campaigns to turn Ranma away from Akane.

Ahh. Well, perhaps that was it. But would Cologne really care about Shampoo's various doomed attempts to set Akane up with Ryoga? Cologne wasn't really the type to play such a simplistic game as that; she was usually working something like fifteen levels at a time, and generally kept her own counsel.

"Very well," the old woman said eventually, thumping her stick on the table with a sharp, decisive rap. Akane jumped, startled. "I will visit young Mr. Hibiki tomorrow and see what I may discover."

"Thank you, granny!" she burst out, feeling in spite of herself a great sense of relief as a weight lifting from her chest that she hadn't even known was there. Cologne smiled at her and it was almost kind, Shampoo's face remained inscrutable, and Akane with another few bows and some polite words excused herself from the lair of one of her two great rivals, wondering at the complexity of her life.

--

The stillness of the sky was difficult to see from his position on the ground. He shielded his eyes and peered upward, but the white radiance of the sun was blinding, and he could barely see anything at all.

There was, he knew, an edge to the world, and after that an ocean huge and cold, and then another shore. Far away on the opposite side was a great conflagration that burned without ceasing. A whole world on fire. He remembered having seen it, once, though it had seemed like a dream at the time. Something far away, so distant that its light was barely visible where he stood on the far side of a great, un-navigable sea.

He recalled feeling a sense of sadness at the sight, though now he couldn't remember why.

Ryoga poked at the ground in front of him with a short stick he'd picked up somewhere, and pondered his memories as they flowed like water, each spark of sunlight on the surface a reflection of a moment in time.

He was in a park somewhere, after having walked for only about twenty minutes. The familiarity of motion was comforting, and his feet itched to be moving again—on a typical day Ryoga could walk from the moment that false dawn lightened the sky until even after dark, with a steady ground-devouring stride that ate up the distance between any two strange places. All the world was more or less the same to Ryoga, neither terribly strange nor very familiar, but being in motion was to him as much a home as an actual house was to someone like Ukyo, or even Ranma these days, he considered.

He'd only been forced to stop after such a short time because his head had started to come detached from his body. Or that was how it'd felt anyway; thankfully a little experimental prodding about the neck area had reassured him that both essential parts were more or less still joined. He was trying not to think about what he would do if the case had been otherwise. But he'd had to surrender the idea of continuing on for at least a few precious minutes and accept the fact that even he, Hibiki Ryoga, was not indestructible, and as much as Ukyo's and Ranma's and the doctor's warnings grated on his nerves he probably _did_ need to make some allowances for what Ukyo had called his "condition."

"Like I'm pregnant or something," he muttered, and made a face at the horrible images that conjured up.

Well, he hadn't died of boredom at Ukyo's, though it'd been a very near thing, and so far he seemed to be surviving these restless, interminable minutes of having his butt planted on a park bench waiting for the world to settle down and his head to stop flashing weird images across the TV-screen of his mind. His brain was currently parading grotesque pictures of a horribly gravid female Ranma in front of his inner eye; he decided that if they became Ukyo he'd start beating himself in the head with his stick. Or maybe a handy rock.. Actually, why wait? Pregnant Ranma was a pretty horrible thought…

He got to his feet, a little unsteadily, and realized that bending or reaching down was not a possibility. He didn't want a repeat of his near-collapse in Ukyo's storage room. He sank back down again and growled in frustration.

It would only be a matter of time, he knew, before Ukyo's violently Good-Samaritan tendencies brought her out hunting for him—maybe with Ranma in tow. If not actually out of a desire to _help,_ as the meaning of the word was generally understood by sane people, at least she would pursue him out of a desire not to be thwarted in whatever plans or decisions she'd made regarding his fate. Chances were pretty high that she'd catch up to him, too. He personally had no clue where he was, and even without knowing the direction he'd gone it wouldn't take long for Ukyo to canvass the entire area which a person could possible traverse on foot in less than half an hour—especially if said person stopped to _rest._

He needed to cover ground, and he needed to move steadily in one definite direction—difficult in a populated area full of walls and corners and dead-ends. He needed a clear shot at the horizon, or he'd never even make it out of Nerima, much less the endless sprawling man-made wilderness that was the entirety of Tokyo. He ached for the stillness of the deep woods, the galleries of great trees and the damp fecundity of the earth. In the wild things went deep; here everything was on the surface, waiting for a stiff breeze to blow it all away and turn the city-state into a waste of sand and burning sunlight.

How did it go?

_A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream…_

A train was coming, somewhere close; Ryoga could hear the _ding-ding-ding!_ of the warning klaxon and he imagined the red lights blinking in and out of life.

"A...a flash of lightning," he murmured to no-one in particular, "in a summer cloud." He paused as the approaching noise of the train rent the late afternoon with a dark and horrible shriek. His head turned in the direction of the sound, hidden by houses but getting closer, rising to obliterate all other noise, all possibility of thought: a black and thundering scream.

"A flickering lamp," he said softly, and grasped the stick, "A phantom, and a dream."

He walked in the direction of the noise.

--

She didn't know why she cared. She _shouldn't_ care—what did it matter to _her_ if that-that idiot, that moron, that _jackass_...got himself stranded without money, food or shelter in the middle of flipping Tokyo? There were vagrants all over the damn place; he could sleep on the street with the rest of them. Hell, he'd probably done it plenty of times before. It wasn't like it was her problem, he wasn't her responsibility, she had a business to run, and classes to sit through, and—and a fiancée to pursue, for dog's sake! Ryoga wasn't a variable in the equation of her life, he wasn't an...an ingredient in the okonomiyaki of her existence. Not even one of the weird ones, like bleu cheese or squid lips or something. Ryoga wasn't _anybody_. He didn't _mean anything._

So why was she sprinting along the roofs of Nerima as if an entire platoon of tax auditors waving small business filing forms were after her?

"Stupidity," she fumed through gritted teeth. "I must've caught it from him."

She hadn't tried to stop, though, or turn back. She couldn't consider it. The moment the thought arose in her mind, another one emerged like its dark and evil twin: that of herself, cold, alone, lost and wounded on the streets of Tokyo. She couldn't imagine it, she couldn't think to endure it, and the mere idea of trying to settle down to sleep tonight knowing Ryoga was out there, in exactly that situation, lost and confused and injured, and she _could have found him _but she _didn't_ filled her with a combination of sick fear and self-loathing.

She wasn't that kind of person. She couldn't stomach the thought.

Tears pricked her eyes, but she refused to acknowledge them and did not lift a hand to her face. She wasn't going to cry over something so stupid. But she couldn't shake the sense that if something happened, if Ryoga was hurt (_more_, a little inner voice whispered), it would be _her fault her fault._

"No," she hissed through clenched teeth.

She pounded on, casting from side to side, gaze sweeping the roads below her as she ran. The fact that the heavy tiles did not split or crack beneath her feet was a testament to the quality of roofing in Nerima—any aged, crumbling tiles had long ago been replaced by sturdy solid, hard-wearing types, designed to withstand all the day- and nighttime traffic the town's upper stories supported since Ranma had moved into the area. Ukyo was relatively light and she'd forgotten even to strap on her oversized spatula, but she was running on adrenaline and fumes from her battle aura now, and her heels were slamming heavily into the ceramic with every step she took.

When she screeched to a sudden halt after about fifteen minutes hard sprinting, it was not because she'd spotted anything but because she'd run out of rooftops; she was in an area where train tracks cut cleanly through a street, and Ukyo, after a moment's hesitation on wobbly legs, leapt to the ground and bent her knees, absorbing as much of the impact as possible. Her thighs, shins and Achilles tendons _burned_ and her lungs ached. She clenched her fists and swung her head from side to side, snarling like an animal, fighting her weakness, fighting for breath.

When she glanced to the right, her glance fell on a tell-tale flash of yellow amidst the greens and greys of the surrounding homes and little shops. Her eyes widened.

"Gotcha..." she said, and with a command to her legs and lungs to _shut the hell up _she sprang after him in pursuit, dashing alongside the tracks, weeds whipping at her legs, smacking aside the laundry as she sprinted through tiny yards and vaulted low walls.

"Hey you!" She shouted, voice pitched to carry over the distance and the noise of the warning lights at the intersection behind her. "Yo—squid lips!"

Of course he didn't answer to that, and Ukyo kicked into overdrive, shouting, "Ryoga! Hey! _Ryoga!!_" at the top of her voice.

He'd been walking easily, with a slow and comfortable pace, and now he turned finally to regard her with a lazy wave of a hand.

"You jackass!" she hollered at him, over the rising noise of...something...behind her, "You made me chase you over half the damn town! What the _hell did you think you were_..." Her voice trailed off as she turned, in sudden horror, and saw the oncoming train. Far away now, down the tracks, the noise came on like a wail from deep within the earth.

Ryoga saw it too, apparently. He had to, since he was standing in the middle of the tracks.

He didn't seem to be too concerned. In fact, he was...he was...

He was _turning around and proceeding to walk away._

"Ryoga!" Ukyo screamed at him, legs almost buckling with the fiery agony of exertion and sudden mind-numbing disbelief. Her voice cracked and her fists clenched. She didn't have time to cough or swallow against the pain, didn't have any time for sound or breath or thought, just to run, to run, onto the gravel, onto the tracks, no thought against the wall of noise, no bright candle against the thunder and crash of the train, against the darkness no shining light, no hope, no brilliance, no life—

She slammed bodily into Ryoga, propelling them both off the tracks and down the slight gravel incline, into somebody's property. The train howled past behind them, shaking the ground, ratting the laundry poles, rattling Ukyo's bones deep within her body.

Even her shoulders were shaking.

"You idiot..." she gasped, getting up with difficulty. Ryoga was half-sprawled on the ground, looking up at her with wide, confused brown eyes.

"What. Were. You. _Doing_?" she demanded, twisting both her long hands into his thick black hair and wrenching him upright, to his knees. She saw him wince, and didn't care.

"What were you _doing_?" she screamed again, into his face, ignoring the hot tears that were spilling out onto her cheeks. Her shoulders were trembling, and her chest, and hips, and her legs from the exhaustion of running and the fear, the _fear_ oh god _I almost got hit by a _train_, Ryoga almost got himself _killed _he almost got us_ both_ killed _ohgodohgodohgodohgod.

"What..." he started to get up, slightly unbalanced, and Ukyo released her death grip on his hair. She wondered suddenly if she'd upset the bandages...not that it mattered...

"Ukyo? Why are you—why are you crying? Don't cry, Ukyo—" he started to reach out but Ukyo, jaw clenched against the impossible agony in her chest as she fought for control, unable to halt the tears or quell the gasping, hitching sobs that wracked her frame, reared back and brought her hand crashing around into Ryoga's face with a report so loud that the birds perched on roofs across the street rose suddenly into the air with a rush of wings. Ryoga actually staggered with the blow. Ukyo hissed in pain and shook her aching hand, then wiped her face with her arm. Tears clung to the fine hairs on her bare skin.

"Idiot," she whispered again, while Ryoga worked his jaw, then brought his hands halfway to his face.

"_Ow_," he said, then clapped his hands to his ears as his eyes widened.

"Oh my god!" he blurted. "I'm—I'm deaf! Ukyo, I'm—I can't hear! You hit me so hard I've--I've gone deaf!"

"Oh...shut up," she growled, grabbing him by the ear and stalking back toward the road.

"Ukyo? Ukyo! Hey! Where are we going?"

* * *

_Next: explanations! Complications! _


	4. Ahimsa

* * *

4: ahimsa (devotion to nonviolence) 

Ranma was waiting for them at the restaurant, mercifully alone. When Ukyo stalked in, framed by the purpling evening sky and towing a protesting Ryoga by an ear that was probably beet-red and glowing like a uranium rod by now, Ranma got to his feet and hurried to her side.

"Holy crap," he said, "The hell happened to you?"

"_This_ happened," she growled, shoving Ryoga onto a stool. Ukyo knew she looked like something the cat dragged in, ate, and then puked back up--bits of grass were stuck in her hair and her uniform was filthy, her elbows and knees were stained green and her face...her face...

"Ukyo...have you been _crying_?" the incredulous note in Ranma's voice made her fingers twitch, and she resisted the urge to ball her hand into a fist and pummel...well, Ranma might deserve it for that little comment but she would probably take it out on Ryoga instead. She forced herself to relax.

"Today," she said, swaying only slightly as she smoothed her hair back and tried to regain some semblance of her dignity, "is _not being a good day._" She turned her glare on Ryoga, who withered on the stool.

"Um...sorry?" he offered, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy.

"What _happened?"_ Ranma demanded, and Ukyo shook her head.

No," she said, "First things first. You, help me," she shoved Ranma from behind, "We're gonna manhandle this idiot back into bed and _tie him down _if that's what it takes to keep him in place."

"You're gonna tie him to your bed?" Ranma started to grin, but his face froze when Ukyo's glare turned in his direction and suddenly the pigtailed boy was overcome by a coughing fit.

"And _you_," she went on, turning back to the lost boy, who shivered, "Are going to give me your _word of honor_ as a martial artist not to wander off again, not, in fact, to even _leave this building_ without my _express permission_, do I make myself _absolutely goddamn clear?!_" With each word Ukyo took a step closer and Ryoga shrank back against the counter; Ukyo considered that it was a good thing the grill hadn't been on for quite a while now. Well, good for Ryoga, anyway. Ukyo thought the smell of sizzling flesh might help calm her down a bit right about now.

"Yes, Ukyo!" whimpered Ryoga, thoroughly cowed.

"Get him upstairs," she ordered Ranma, "and haul your ass back down here as soon as you do. Hit him if he won't be quiet."

Ranma's eyes were wide as saucers; he hadn't seen Ukyo in such a violent mood for some time. True to the nature of all men when confronted with a sincerely scary woman, he hurried to obey.

"C'mon, man." He hooked an arm under the other boy's shoulder and hoisted him to his feet. Ukyo watched them climb the stairs, Ryoga wobbling slightly as they went.

As soon as they were out of sight, Ukyo collapsed onto a stool and put her face in her hands.

Upstairs, Ranma stood in the doorway and regarded Ryoga. He wasn't interested in manhandling, as Ukyo had said, someone else into a futon who didn't want to go, but Ryoga seemed to have some sense that his immediate and future well-being depended on not angering Ukyo in any way, and had meekly settled on the _shitabuton_, cheeks flushing red. Ranma noticed that his bandages were askew.

"Ryoga, man, what the hell did you do?" Ranma asked in a low voice.

Ryoga shook his head. "I don't _know._" His voice was piteous and almost a wail. "I was...walking, and then Ukyo was there, and she yelled my name a couple times, and then all of a sudden she was," he waved his hands, making a gesture reminiscent of a rugby tackle, "She just..._plowed_ into me and then she was pulling my hair and yelling in my face and then...and then she clocked me."

Ranma raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"

"That's...pretty much what happened, yeah."

"So she just went insane and beat you up for _no reason?"_

"Since when does Ukyo need a reason to scream and yell at me? She was crying, though. Oh, and there was a train."

Ranma frowned. "What do you mean, 'there was a train'?"

"Just that. There was a train; we were near the tracks, it was loud."

"A train," Ranma repeated.

"Yes."

"And Ukyo just beat the holy hell out of you for no reason whatsoever."

"Well, that's kind of what she always does."

Ranma nodded. "Yeah..." he mused, "Yeah, that's...that's pretty true." He paused. "But she was also crying."

Ryoga looked down at his hands. "Yeah. I don't—it was bizarre. This whole thing is just..." he trailed off.

"Ukyo doesn't usually go all girly like that. Hell, I can't remember the last time she got so upset she busted out _cryin'_. Any idea why?"

Wordlessly, Ryoga shook his head.

Ranma was silent as well. Sitting on the futon mat, legs folded and shoulders slumped, Ryoga looked miserable, and seemed to be trying to make himself as small as possible. His hair hung in his eyes and and his hands were clenched into fists. Like Ukyo his face was scuffed and there was a stick in his hair, which he seemed to not have noticed. Ranma wondered how Ukyo would react to someone so physically dirty sitting in her nice clean futon. Probably not well, but what was Ranma supposed to do? Pour a bucket of water on the guy?

Not really an option, there.

"Ryoga, man, why the hell did you run off like that? What were you tryin' to do, piss Ukyo off as much as you could?"

Ryoga shrugged without looking up.

"Dammit, Ryoga, I've known you for too long—hell, I'm the only person in the whole damn world who's known you as long as me. I mean, I know we ain't exactly friends or nothing but…" he trailed off, then shook his head. "You know what, whatever. It's not like—"

"Ranma," Ryoga said quietly. Ranma paused from turning away from the door. "Ranma, I wasn't trying to do anything. I just don't see what the big _deal_ is, why everyone's so upset about this. And I—I wasn't...I mean I didn't w-want to make Ukyo mad. I mean god, who would want to do _that?_ I just...I just don't know how to get comfortable in one place like this. You know?"

Ranma shook his head. Sure, he'd spent years on the road with his bastard of a father and it wasn't like he had no concept of the appeal of the outdoors, but during all that time what he'd craved the most was the thing he had now—a place to be, a soft futon instead of a bedroll or blanket, a roof instead of the cold vault of the stars.

"You always seem to do okay over at the Tendo's," Ranma said, and watched Ryoga slowly raise his head.

"What do you—at your _fiancee's?_ I've st-stayed there?"

Ranma tried to suppress a smile. With the slight stutter and wide-eyed, stunned expression, Ryoga looked the way he usually did whenever Akane came up--when the fanged idiot wasn't actively trying to murder Ranma in defense of the girl's "honor", or for some other, equally boneheaded reason.

"A lot, yeah."

"But—but—" Ryoga paused, then drew a deep breath. "What exactly is—I mean, how ex-exactly do I know Miss Tendo? How do I--?"

Ranma sucked air through his teeth.

"That's an explanation for another time. And you look like hell. Get some sleep. And brush the sticks outta your hair 'fore you get into Ukyo's futon, all right? Or she'll probably break my damn neck." He paused. "And you'd better not think about takin' off again, or this time _I'll_ come out after ya, and believe me it won't be to give you no love tap like Ukyo did. Get me?"

Ryoga stared at him from under his thick bangs, and from the set of his jaw, a single fang sticking out slightly over his lower lip, it looked for a moment as if his pride was about to get the best of him. Ryoga never did respond well to threats from Ranma, but this time he simply gritted his teeth and growled, "Fine, sure, I'll just stay here for the rest of my _entire life,_ how's that?"

"Suits me fine," Ranma said, and left.

--

Ukyo was sitting at the counter nursing a cup of tea when he came down; she nodded at the stool next to her where another cup waited, a faint wisp of steam rising and fading into the air.

"Well?" she asked when he sat.

"Well, he promised to stay put," Ranma said with a shrug, "but, I mean, there's only so much I can do. The guy don't exactly do whatever I tell him—even without a hole in the head."

"Yeah..." she sat back in the chair, massaging her forehead.

"You gonna tell me what the hell happened, or do I gotta guess?"

Ukyo opened her eyes and fixed them on the ceiling. She was silent for a long moment.

"I don't know what happened," she said finally, brows drawing together, a frown creasing her forehead. "I don't know _what_ the hell he was...was doing or thinking. I found him...he was walking along...along the train tracks."

"He _what_?"

"Well, it kind of makes sense, though," she said, "For someone like him. Going in a straight line, I mean. Except that only works if you _get off the tracks when the train comes."_

Ranma sucked a sharp breath through his teeth. Ukyo had brushed the grass and twigs from her hair, but her face was still dirty and tear-streaked. His eyes flicked toward the ceiling, in the direction of the presumably napping Ryoga.

"He didn't tell me about that," Ranma said grimly.

"I know." Ukyo lowered her head and looked directly at him.

"Why would he lie about somethin' I could come down here and find out about from you?"

Ukyo said, "I don't think he _was_ lying."

"Do what now?"

She swallowed. "I tr-tried talking to him on the way back—"

"Talkin'? Or yellin'?" In spite of all the weirdness, Ranma allowed his mouth to quirk into a half-grin. His efforts were rewarded when Ukyo gave a faint, shaky smile.

"Both, I guess," she said. "I—when I found him, the train was—it was going to—" she clenched her fists in her lap and shuddered.

Softly Ranma said, "Ukyo."

"I had to drag him off the tracks!" she exploded. "To physically _drag_ him into somebody's yard! In front of an oncoming train!" Her shoulders were still shaking as she spoke, and Ranma realized with a shock that in fact her entire slender frame was trembling. He shifted uneasily; comforting emotionally distraught women was not exactly his forte.

"Ucchan, why'd you do somethin' so dangerous like that?"

"Because it's a god-damned train, you _jackass!_" she practically shrieked, eyes wild.

"But Ryoga's pretty tough. Maybe it wouldn't—"

"What? _Kill_ him?" she spat the words. "Ranma, honey, I love ya but don't be a moron. _No_ one—not me, not Shampoo, not you and _not even Ryoga_—can survive being hit by 500 tons of steel going 150 kilometers an hour. If I hadn't been there, if I'd just been a few s-seconds slower," she was trembling harder now, "If I had stopped to rest for a minute then Ryoga—Ryoga would be just a smear on the tracks and a two-minute blurb on the ten o'clock news. It would have ripped him into pieces. It would've torn him apart."

She squeezed her eyes shut and drew deep, shuddering breaths. Ranma edged a little closer on his stool. There was a question he had to ask, and almost couldn't bear to.

"Ucchan," he said quietly, "Do you think he was—I mean, was he tryin' to..."

"He just didn't _understand_," she said with a fierce shake of her head, opening her eyes and staring into the distance. "He just didn't—he couldn't f-figure out why I was so _mad _and I—and I...oh _god_ Ranma I hit him so _hard_..." she covered her mouth with her hand as tears spilled out onto her cheeks.

Ranma flushed. He should be doing...something...shouldn't he? Crying girls needed comforting, right? Even Ukyo. He tried to think what he would do if it were Akane sitting here, bawling her eyes out.

_Say something stupid and get hit with a mallet, prob'ly_, he mused. Mallet-therapy seemed to be in some way fundamental to a girl's basic mental health. He decided to try it here; Ukyo could beat on him for a while, then she'd feel better and he'd crawl away and find the first-aid kit.

"It's not like you could hurt Ryoga from smackin' him," he tried, "Hell, if you keep it up he'll probably get the wrong idea or somethin'."

Ukyo turned wide, red-rimmed eyes to him. Ranma winced a little in anticipation. Ukyo's mouth worked and at first no sound emerged.

Then: "You—you bastard!" she flung herself at him and Ranma steeled himself, but instead of the jaw-cracking blow he'd expected, he wound up with an armful of Ukyo as she buried her face against his shirt and wept. Reflexively, brain shooting conflicting signals in fifty different directions—_Ukyo girl best friend not-girl friend cute love no! Akane soft friend crying girl ohshitohshitohshit—_he put his arms around her shaking frame. Tears soaked through the material of his shirt and contacted his bare skin.

_Crying girl...crying girl...oh god whatta I do whatta I do..._

"...so scared," Ukyo was whispering, "I was so...so..."

Ranma's eyes narrowed. Damn Ryoga anyway. And damn _him_ for not being around when Ukyo really needed him.

"Ucchan," he said seriously, when she drew back finally and wiped her eyes and face, "Do you want me to beat him up for ya? 'Cause I will."

Ukyo blurted a damp laugh. She sniffled a bit more and Ranma wordlessly drew a tissue from up his sleeve and passed it to her.

"It's just that I really thought—for a moment there, before we were off the tracks, I really felt my life...end, and it was like my whole f-future dropped out from under my..." she blew her nose in a decidedly unfeminine way. "And then...and Ryoga, he—" she sucked a deep breath. "He didn't _get_ it. He kept asking why I was mad and I told him we almost got hit by a train and-and he was all like, 'What? I'm too _dumb_ to know that a stupid train can kill me!'" She waved her hands about, putting on a not-unconvincing imitation of the ultra-macho, hyper-dramatic voice Ryoga used when not dealing with Ukyo or other members of the fairer sex, then slumped.

"He _is_ pretty dumb," Ranma agreed. Ukyo chuckled again, weakly.

"Sorry, Ran-chan," she said, dabbing at her eyes again. "I didn't mean to cry all over you."

"It's all right," he said magnanimously.

"Gawd, I'm such a...such a _girl_," she said, blowing her nose again.

"Well _yeah_," Ranma rolled his eyes. Ukyo socked him good-naturedly in the arm.

"Idiot. You know what I mean."

Ranma grinned a bit. But deep in his gut a little black pit was yawning, borne from the hideous thought that he'd almost lost both his best friend and principal rival in one afternoon. If he weren't Saotome Ranma he would really be freaking out at this point. In fact, somewhere in the back of his mind he _was, _and after he'd had a chance to get home and settle down a bit, he knew he'd be flailing around and spazzing for at least a good fifteen minutes as his brain tried to assimilate the events that had occurred so far.

Right now, though, he cleared his throat.

"So uh, now we take him to doc's clinic, right?" he asked, and raised his eyebrows when Ukyo shook her head.

"Not tonight. Just," he pushed her mussed hair out of her dirty face, "No, there'll be questions—can you imagine how this would look? There's no way, even if I got him cleaned up, with his clothes all stained and, and either his bandages screwed up or I'll have to change them before we go...and then if Dr. Tofu figures out that he was running around outside...and I don't think I can lie about the train, not now," she pressed her long fingers to the side of her head. "God. I could say...what, that he _fell_ really really _hard?_ And that's why he's all beat to hell? Or if I tell the truth, in case Ryoga remembers or, or says something..and then trying to explain he wasn't actually trying to kill himself—at least I don't _think_ he was 'cause I really can't believe Ryoga's _that_ good of an actor—"

"True, true."

"But it's gonna look like he tried to—and then there'll be questions, and what about his parents? What about the _law_, Ranma? What happens to someone our age if—if he's a danger to—and his parents aren't around and, and how the _hell_ are we gonna _explain _this, Ran-chan?"

"Uhh," he said intelligently.

"I need time," she was holding her hair back from her face, looking at nothing, eyes unfocused and fever-bright with exhaustion and stress, "I need time to think about this. About what to say. You—" she looked at Ranma, "Stop at the clinic on your way home, tell Dr. Tofu...tell him we found him and we'll bring him tomorrow. Tell him it's too late, or whatever. Tell him_ something_, but just...not tonight." She shook her head. "Not tonight."

"Ucchan," he lightly touched her on the arm and she gave a slight smile, "You want me to...um, I mean wouldn't it be better if I—um..."

"Spit it out, honey," she said with weary indulgence.

"You want me to stay here? Just tonight, keep an eye on the amazing disappearing Hibiki?"

Ukyo pressed her lips together, and Ranma realized she was seriously considering. He tried frantically to think of how he would explain it to Akane if she said 'yes'."

"No," she said finally, shaking her head, "No, I think...it would get you in trouble with Mr. Tendo and the rest, and I can't guarantee that having you...baby-sitting him...wouldn't piss Ryoga off and do more harm than good."

"But—"

"No, I think keeping him here is going to be tough enough without making him think we're keeping him under...armed guard or whatever."

"I'm not armed," Ranma pointed out."

"No, but you know what I mean. Lock and key. Ball and chain..." she paused and shook her head at that last one. "Just...no. And tomorrow I'll get him cleaned up and looking civilized and then we'll _both_ take him over to the clinic."

"Tomorrow," Ranma repeated.

"Promise."

"Okay." He paused, then said, "How did you get saddled with the guy anyway? Isn't it usually the Tendos who have to deal with this kind of crap?"

Ukyo grinned and shrugged. She said, "Stop by tomorrow morning before school, okay? I need...I won't open the restaurant until he's out of here, but it would help to see a different face first thing. Okay?"

"Sure thing, Ucchan." He slapped her on the back and Ukyo got up, walking with him as far as the door.

"You're a better man than I am, Saotome Ranma," she said, and he gave his trademark cocky smirk.

"Naturally."

"Most of the time anyway," she added, and grinned when he yelped a, "Hey!" She put her hands on her hips and crossed the threshold with him, then watched as he trotted off with a wave. She waved back, until he rounded the corner and the silence of evening and of her familiar loneliness plunged down all around her. The sky was dark and she looked up at the stars, cold and bright and distant. Evenings were chilly in the spring.

She shivered and went inside.

--

Ryoga drifted. Somewhere a girl was crying; someplace far away. Down the side of the mountain, maybe, below the clouds, where the world spread out invisible and glittering like ten thousand precious jewels.

He'd fallen a long way to come to this place, this edge of a bright world where the ranges of cold mountains vaulted at the bitter sky, the violence of hard edges dissolving at the point of contact into a piercing, gentle sweetness. The sky surged like the depths of the sea, lit from within by an unknowable, ancient radiance.

He hadn't died, he was sure. It was possible, but in that case why this brilliant warmth, this feeling of lightness that began in a hollow place in his head and spread to suffuse his entire body, detaching his limbs, stilling his heart, silencing the trembling of his breath? If he had died he wouldn't feel the sense of great abandon that washed over him or taste the perfume of flowers rising from some distant valley in a heady offering to the memory of spring.

Someone began to speak from a distance. He couldn't turn his head to see who it was because his body was melting into the snow, and he couldn't make out what the words were. The voice was dry, like slithering, shifting sand. The memory of the desert.

There were other words, down below, far, far away. The resonance of a male voice heard through water, walls, and miles of earth. The musical voice of the girl who'd been crying, drifting on the wind. On the wind, on the wind.

Or perhaps after all it was only the sound of chimes turning and turning in the breeze, and the noise of a great beast, body slithering beneath the earth far, far below.

--

She stood in the doorway of the tatami room and exhaled. She wasn't the sort of person typically given to tears or overwrought emotional demonstrations (unless they were the sort that involved inflicting violence on other people), and the last few hours of vacillating between bladder-wringing terror and stamina-draining tears had sapped the dregs of her strength and left her weary to her bones. She wanted to crawl into the futon that was still hanging on the balcony to dry and surrender to oblivion for at least eight hours, but she had something to take care of before she could even think about bed.

In the room Ryoga lay sprawled half in and half out of the futon, one arm flung out to the side, fingers curled slightly, eyes shut and mouth open, in the universally helpless pose of the truly dead to the world. Ukyo puffed a breath through her lips as she entered the room, and felt a little smile quirk the corner of her mouth.

"Stupid," she muttered, "You hurt my hand, you know."

Ryoga didn't stir at her soft comment, and she approached with the bowl of lukewarm water in one hand and much-used first-aid kit in the other. Settling on the floor in the masculine cross-legged pose forbidden to girls and women, she lifted Ryoga's head carefully and, drawing the soft washcloth from the bowl, gently began to clean his face.

His eyes opened slightly at the contact of the wet cloth, but didn't focus on anything, and Ukyo frowned slightly in concentration as she wiped away as much of the grime and grass stains as she could. There wasn't much she could do about his clothes—she drew a sharp line at undressing him for any purpose, and there was no way in all the seven hells she would consider anything like (she shuddered at the thought) a _bath_. She was able to pick the rest of the grass and sticks out of his hair, though,

"I'm not a damn nurse, you know," she muttered, giving him a little shake, "You hear me?"

But of course he didn't. She lifted his hands—huge compared to her own long and slender ones—and cleaned them as best she could. Finally she set the bowl aside, drew the first-aid kit closer, and carefully peeled off the misaligned bandages.

It wasn't as bad as she'd feared; somehow the idea had fixed itself in her head that tackling Ryoga down an incline and smacking the crap out of him would in some way cause him _harm_, but that conceit seemed pretty ridiculous to her now. Sure, he was unconscious, but his steady breathing and good color reassured her. And he was just so fundamentally _solid_ in his presence, here in her room, that she felt like a fool for imagining that her puny blows could do him any real damage; up close, it was hard to think of him as being as merely human as she herself was. He was a lot more like Ranma in that way—anything short of a train or another martial artist going all-out would probably do little more than slow him down for a moment. And the injury looked fine, as much as she was able to judge such things. There was a little rust-colored residue on the soft pad the doctor had fixed over the immediate site, but it was old and the area itself looked far better than it had when Ukyo had cleaned and bandaged it the first time, after dragging him back to her restaurant.

When she'd satisfied herself that she'd done all she was able without putting herself in a truly impossible situation vis-à-vis Ryoga's clothes, she did her best to arrange him more or less _on_ the futon mattress, and covered him with only a slight shudder at the thought of what this was doing to her nice, formerly clean sheets.

"The minute you're out of here, I'm having early washing day," she said to his still form, getting to her feet, bowl in hand and kit under an arm. "And don't you go anywhere. I'll be back to check on you before I head to the _storage room_."

She made a face at her own comment as she headed downstairs, through the darkened restaurant, and opened the rear door to the night. As much as the idea of being turned out of her own room grated on her nerves, what other option was there? She'd already considered the possibility of sleeping in the same room with Ryoga—hell, she'd slept there with Akane's entire family and Ranma's stupid old man, so in theory at least it wasn't as if she'd never had a man in her room. Actually there'd been several, at the same time.

"Not something to write home to Dad about," she muttered as she dumped the water into the little concrete ditch behind her restaurant, watching the blades of grass she'd plucked from Ryoga's hair turn and flicker in the outdoor lights from the lot behind, before whirling out of sight into the darkness. She propped the bowl outside and stashed the kit under the upstairs sink, then went to fish her pajamas out of the closet in her darkened room, finding her way by the light from the open window.

Behind her, she heard Ryoga stir, and she turned with an armful of fluffy yukata.

"Ukyo?" he murmured, then inhaled sharply and started to sit up, but Ukyo was ready for him.

"Don't you _dare_, buddy," she said flatly, kneeling and planting a hand on the shoulder nearest her in one fluid motion. "I just got you all arranged, move now and I'll have to start all over."

"I'm not a vase of flowers, you know," he grumbled irritably, but met her eyes briefly before settling back with short exhalation, tension leaving his muscles somewhat.

"I'm sorry I took off like that," he said in a soft voice as Ukyo withdrew her hand, and she blinked. She hadn't expected any sort of apology. "But you didn't have to knock the hell out of me the way you always do, you know," he added.

She _felt_ her battle aura flare at that, and heard it in the crackling that suddenly arose as the tips of her hair writhed with the influx of energy. Biting the inside of her cheek, she forced calm upon herself.

"Look, _you_," she ground, then drew a deep, deep breath and held it, counting to five, before letting it out. "Ryoga," she said in a much calmer, if slightly shaky voice, "I want you to listen to me very, very carefully, okay?"

"Uh—" his eyes were wide; clearly he'd noticed the sudden flare of her desire to inflict pain, and was trying to surreptitiously inch away from her.

"_Listen _to me, will you? And stop squirming around! I had a very good reason for being upset. I need—I need for you to understand that, okay?" There was a slight edge to her voice now, almost a cracking of desperation, or hope.

"I don't—"

"I know right now it doesn't make a lot of sense to you. I know that...that it was weird and mean for me to jump on you and yell at you and—and yank you around by your hair."

"Well, _yeah_..."

"And I know we don't exactly have a long history of camaraderie and getting along and trust, okay? I _know_ all that. But even so..." she took another deep breath and let it out slowly, willing her voice to softness, trying to dull all the edges of her anger and upset and deep, deep weariness, "Ryoga I need you to trust me and to believe me, just this once. Look at me, Ryoga. Look at my face. Believe me when I say that I had a really, _really_ good reason for being upset, and for doing what I did."

He stared up at her, but was silent. Ukyo exhaled a long sigh through stiffened lips.

Finally the lost boy said, "Ukyo..."

"Ryoga, do you believe me? Do you believe that I had a reason to be so angry, that it was a good reason, that I really didn't do it just to hurt you?"

He said, "Sure, sure."

Ukyo scowled. "Damn you! Look at my face! Do you _believe_ me, Ryoga? Do you believe I had a good reason? Do you?"

There was a moment's pause, and Ukyo saw his eyes narrow slightly, eyebrows drawing together. She wondered if she'd finally pushed him too far this evening, and if that famous Hibiki temper, reserved usually and almost exclusively for Ranma and which never, ever flared in the direction of any woman, was finally about to blow up right in her face. She tried to think of what she could do in that case; she didn't think her insurance would cover the damage he could potentially do to her apartment and restaurant. She wasn't going to even _think_ about the damage he could do to _her_.

He wouldn't hit a girl, right?

Then, to her surprise and not inconsiderable relief, he propped himself up on one elbow and did as she'd requested. His eyes searched her face for a long moment and she felt a slow flush begin to suffuse her cheeks. He didn't need to stare at her _quite_ that much, did he?

Finally, he gave a slow, hesitant nod.

"I believe you," he told her quietly. She exhaled a breath she hadn't even known she'd been holding.

"And will you promise to stay put here tonight, and not climb out through the window or anything and disappear into the middle of Tokyo?"

He closed his eyes and bowed his head.

"I promise," he said.

Ukyo nodded and felt a weary smile quirk the edges of her lips. This was all she could really ask of him at this point. She gently laid a hand on his shoulder again and pushed him, softly, back on to the pillow.

"Get some sleep," she told him. "I'll be in the next room if you...if you need anything."

He'd opened his eyes when his head hit the pillow, and now he nodded hesitantly, a perplexed look on his face.

"Will you tell me tomorrow what got you so upset today?" he asked quietly, and Ukyo, getting to her feet and brushing off her knees, paused before heading to the door.

"Maybe," she said with a smile, nudging him lightly with a foot and earning a look of pure annoyance from him, "If you're nice to me."

* * *

_Author's note: Apologies in advance as it may take some extra time to get the next chapter out. I'll do my best to get it done in the next 2 weeks or so. Sorry!_


	5. Metta

* * *

5: metta (kindness & goodwill)

_She told him, "You've got a long, long way to go."_

_"I know," he answered her, "Years and years."_

_"Yes."_

_"Thousands of miles."_

Thousands of miles.

_She said, "Yes." _

_"But it would be easier," he continued quietly, "It would be easier, if I had someone to go there with."_

_Better, if I didn't have to go all alone._

_"Yes," she told him softly. "But then again, most of life is going alone. Isn't it?"_

_--_

Isn't it?

--

Brightness lifted the weight of the night, the madness of a world without stars, and in the lightening room the artifacts of life gradually coalesced from the soft fog of nothingness and took on recognizable shapes in the light of false dawn. Insubstantial clouds slowly became edges, corners, and surfaces: the buttresses of human existence, familiar forms that divided the waking world from the fevered nightmares of the mind.

Ryoga, sitting on the folded-up futon mattress by the open window, inhaled the cool spring air and watched the light of dawn flood the world outside. He'd bitten the inside of his cheek during the night and now the soft lump of wounded flesh throbbed dully every time his tongue brushed against it. He'd woken suddenly to the taste of blood in his mouth some time during the small hours, and he'd lain awake with wide staring eyes and listened to the noise of the train as it thundered through the room, tearing apart the walls in a blind agony of inexorable motion.

Now in the stillness of the morning the stirring of small birds outside the window and the sound of the cars and people on the road brought the world back to him in gentleness, like snow falling on still water, dissipating, melting into nothingness.

Ryoga didn't think of himself as a particularly religious person, but in his childhood he'd gone to a kindergarten run by the local temple in his neighborhood, and there he'd learned to recite sutras from memory that, years later, he'd encountered again during his wanderings and clung to as a means to occasionally stave of boredom. Ryoga tended to read anything he could get his grubby mitts on, and though he'd probably be the first (or actually the second, if Ranma was anywhere in the vicinity) to admit that he didn't understand about ninety-percent of what he read, nevertheless he had a slight affinity for poetry and verse, and as an extension for certain more significant passages from various sutras.

The lines that had come to him yesterday rose once again in his mind, inflamed by the fever of exhaustion, and the words flared and burned with a light all their own in the darkness behind his wide-open eyes.

_Thus shall you think of all this fleeting world;  
As a star at dawn;  
A bubble in a stream;  
A flash of lightning in a summer cloud;  
A flickering lamp;  
A phantom, and a dream._

At the sound of the door sliding quietly open he turned and only belatedly realized that he'd spoken aloud.

"You don't half look like hell," Ukyo told him, entering the room carrying a tray with teacups and a teapot, with a hot-water heater dangling from her hand, all of which she sat on the floor before crossing to the little uncollapsed collapsible table pushed up against her bookshelves. She wore her cotton yukata still, with it's print of tiny frolicking moon-rabbits.

"I remembered," he said to her, and marveled internally at the way his mouth formed the words so carefully, the syllables dropping quietly into the gradually lightening room as softly as falling feathers, delicate as the first flakes of December snow.

"Remembered what?" Ukyo asked, stopping in the middle of sliding the table to the center of the room. Behind her steam rose from the teapot and dissipated into the half-darkness of the room. The light of dawn played across her features as the tree outside shifted in a morning breeze.

"The train," he said. "I remembered."

She pressed her lips together and just for a moment something flashed across her face, but it was gone before Ryoga could interpret it. Turning without getting to her feet, Ukyo lifted up the tray and gently, carefully, placed a cup across from where she knelt with the slightest noise of ceramic on wood, like a pause between two moments in a person's life. She set the other cup in front of herself. Ryoga watched the light and the shadows of tree branches move over the skin of her bare arms, flashing on the tiny golden hairs. The sound of tears came back to him, and he inhaled suddenly the cold air of the high mountains and bitter, piercing cold.

"What do you mean you remember?" Ukyo asked him carefully, without looking up from her tea. Ryoga blinked hard, then looked out the window again.

"About the…about being…there," he said, quietly, to the soft sounds of birds outside. "About what...that you were there. That I…" he looked down at his hands and watched the fingers slightly curl and uncurl. "I'm so s-s-_sorry_, Ukyo," he squeezed his eyes shut, biting his lip until it hurt, then releasing the damaged skin with almost a gasp. "I didn't mean to…I never meant to…" he opened his eyes and stared out the window, shaking his head.

"I never meant to put you in danger," he forced out, in a hushed voice.

He looked at her and found Ukyo staring at him. He flushed, but forced himself to meet her gaze.

"I'm sorry," he barely was able to force the words past his teeth. The awfulness of it was trying to choke him.

"Well," she said, and cleared her throat after a pause, "Well I…I guess now you know why I got so pissed off at you, huh?"

"Yeah," he whispered.

She watched him silently for a moment, before finally lifting a hand, gesturing toward the table.

"Come and have some tea," she told him, then added, "Are you okay to walk?"

"Mm," he grunted, getting to his feet and allowing himself only a tiny capitulation to his less-than-ideal physical condition after the knocks he'd taken and the damage to his head. He barely brushed the tips of his fingers against the wall as he got up, more for moral support than any real physical assistance—though it did help to orient him slightly in space, which in his case was never anything to turn up his nose at. He didn't think that he was going to pitch forward onto his face, but he knew that something, still, remained slightly off-kilter.

He actually did feel a bit better,though, than he had yesterday, despite not having eaten for over thirteen hours. He didn't have that weird sense of distant strangeness that had overwhelmed him during his ill-advised flight from Ukyo's apartment, either. The shrieking horror of the train had receded with Ukyo's presence in the room: whole and vibrant and alive. The quiet of the morning was reassuring. He crossed to the table and settled carefully on the floor.

"Tea," Ukyo said again, and Ryoga rolled his eyes only slightly, before wrapping his hands around the fragile cup and sipping cautiously.

They sat for a while in silence as the noise of the wakening city swelled up around them like the rushing of the tide: voices and cars, little animals. It was decidedly homey, but not in a disconcerting way. Ryoga let some of the tension ease out of his shoulders and with a slight sigh his head drooped. Putting down his tea he massaged his aching eyes.

"How long have you been awake?" he heard Ukyo ask, and lowered his hands and looked at her.

"Not sure." He picked up his cup again. "It was dark when I opened my eyes. It was—" he broke off and without ever having touched it to his lips set the cup down again, with exceeding gentleness and a hand that barely shook at all.

"Ryoga." Across the table, Ukyo spoke softly. She seemed to be working herself up to something very difficult, and Ryoga tried to brace himself, knowing what had to inevitably follow.

"Why did you do it?" she asked finally, and knowing it was coming didn't make it any easier.

"Do-do what?" he tried, hoping to somehow deflect the question. He thought for a moment that his deliberate denseness might infuriate the girl, as so very many of the things he did seemed to. He waited for her to bristle, saw her shoulders tense, heard the intake of breath…and then watched her fists, where they'd clenched tightly on the table, slowly open until they once again were long, slender hands.

"Why did you walk along the tracks like that?" Her face seemed strangely sad as she asked the question, and Ryoga, still not wanting to give any real response, felt pressured to say something, anything, if only to soften the edges of the expression on her face.

_"Don't cry, Ukyo."_

"It…seemed like a good idea at the time," he told her slowly, and watched Ukyo's brows like lively caterpillars do a little dance of skepticism above her eyes.

Clearly unsatisfied with his answer, she nevertheless took a moment before replying—reigning in her temper, Ryoga suspected. When she opened her mouth, he cringed back involuntarily.

"_What_ exactly was it that seemed like a good idea?" she demanded, though far less…energetically than Ryoga'd expected. "Going for a stroll in front of an oncoming train, or splattering yourself all over the damn street when the freaking thing _mowed you down?_"

"I didn't mean—" he shook his head sharply, ignoring the way his head twinged with the sudden motion, "I didn't mean to h-hurt you. Me. Anyone."

"So you weren't…" the question Ukyo didn't seem to be able to ask hung in the air all around them, huge and awful.

"No! No I—god, Ukyo, I would never…" he drew a deep breath and exhaled, shuddering, from deep in his belly. "God. Never."

"Then _why_," she said slowly, enunciating each word with great precision, as if dropping heavy stones into deep water, "Why the _hell_ were you smack-bang in the middle of the damn tracks like that, waiting to be pulverized?"

"I didn't mean to!" he burst out, hiding his face in his hands. "I didn't…" he dropped his hands and shook his head sharply. "It was like…like being l-lost," he admitted, almost swallowing the word, staring past her and the wall, into some incalculable distance, "Like…having all the p-pieces, the places or…or the things. I mean, I mean everything's in f-front of you but…but they don't mean anything." He bit his lip, a fang pressing against the skin without piercing.

"I don't understand," she said.

"_Lost_," he said again, spitting the word, with all its overtones of poisonous despair, the cracked and blackened edges of a pathless, unmappable world. "Not knowing. Not seeing. Not understanding…what's in front of your face; what you _should_ know, what's so easy for everybody else, and you don't kn-know or understand because you _can't_, because you….you…" he trailed off, realizing belatedly the unwarranted vehemence of his voice, inappropriate for the cozy little room.

"I saw the train," he went on quietly, picking up the cup, turning it around lightly in his fingers. "I remember watching it and feeling the ground underneath me shaking. And I, I thought, 'It's a train.' I mean I knew what it was." He stopped then for a moment, but Ukyo said nothing so he continued. "I knew what it was but I didn't think anything about being there. The pieces didn't fit together."

"What pieces?"

"Me. The train." He set the cup down with a soft clink. "Death."

Ukyo exhaled a long breath. A breeze stirred in the room; Ryoga's bangs tickled his eyelids.

"And you didn't feel…anything?"

He pushed some of his hair out of his face; a futile gesture as it flopped back almost immediately.

"Things were…weird." His voice sounded very small to his own ears. "It was—I was…" he trailed off.

"You waved at me," Ukyo told him. "You just turned around and waved. And you looked like—like everything was perfectly normal. Like you were out for a stroll."

He inhaled sharply and slowly let the breath out.

"Everything felt very…very far away," he told her, and outside were the noises of windows being slid open, and the sharp footsteps of high-heels on the pavement. A momentary breeze brought the late smell of the final, falling cherry blossoms from next door into the room.

"What do you mean?"

But Ryoga shook his head. Discussions of the inner workings of his own mind did not feature very prominently within his everyday life experiences, and he'd run out of metaphors to accurately describe his experiences of the previous day. He looked at the slender girl across from him, took in her expression, and gulped and looked down at his hands. They were, he noticed, twisting against one other, the knuckle of his right thumb pushing hard against the bones of his left hand. The expression he'd seen on Ukyo's face was one he couldn't remember having seen on any girl's face ever in his life, in any connection with himself. Her eyes were wide and full of something soft and strange? Something he didn't know the word for. Her brows were drawn and a slight crease marred the skin of her forehead. Her lips were pressed together, and for a long moment, as Ryoga stared fascinated at his huge, clumsy hands, the girl was silent. He became aware of the sound of his own breath then, and of hers, from across some impassable gulf of distance.

"What time did you wake up?" she asked him finally. Ryoga stilled his hands, squeezing a knuckle of his index finger hard between the thumb and forefinger of his opposite hand. The pain was dull and distant and did nothing to calm the momentary, sharp stab of electricity within his belly at the sound of her voice in the room.

"I don't know. It was dark. I dreamt…there was a sound. The same sound. Only you w-weren't there." He swallowed. "I was all alone."

"What sound?"

"The train," he said, "Over and over. For _hours._"

He heard her inhale and sit back. Why, he could not imagine. But she got up, then, crouching slightly, and came around the table to him, and Ryoga drew back automatically from the strangeness of proximity without raising his head, without meeting her gaze.

"Let me look at you," Ukyo said, reaching out, "C'mon, quit squirmin' around."

Perhaps because of her words, unadorned and ordinary despite the strangeness of the situation, he ceased to pull away and allowed her to rest the tips of her fingers on his chin, tilting his face toward the light from the window. His eyes flicked to her face, then away, then back again.

"Like hell," Ukyo tsked, giving him a slight smile. "You shouldn't've got up."

"I couldn't g-go back to sleep," her fingers were still touching his skin, light and electric, painful. He inhaled and gently pushed her arm down. "I'm sorry I…almost got you killed," he said, through lips numb with the awfulness of it and the ridiculous inadequacy of any apology.

"You need to see a doctor," Ukyo told him. Dumbly, he nodded, all thoughts of arguing his mental fitness long since fled. At least she wasn't touching him anymore. But when he peered cautiously up at her, with his head still ducked slightly and hair partly obscuring his view because of the odd angle, he saw the sunlight reflected off the surface of her eyes and her eyelashes flashing pale gold.

"Will you come with me, to the doctor?" she asked in a strange voice. What was it in her tone? She seemed…perhaps hesitant, as if asking him might bring on some fearful retribution. Or perhaps the memory of the previous day had not left her, and she thought that he might disappear again, right in front of her this time, in a wisp of smoke and brief fire.

"I—" he swallowed. "_N-now?_ But--but it's only six o'clock!"

"Yeah," she said, "And I've got to be at school by eight. And you—"

She broke off suddenly at the sharp, unexpected noise of someone hammering at the door downstairs, and Ryoga jumped and let out a little "Eep!" Giving him a wan smile, which Ryoga barely saw out of the corner of his eye as he was still unable to meet her gaze completely, Ukyo got to her feet, patting off her knees and legs.

"It's Ran-chan," she said, sounding almost apologetic. Ryoga nodded, staring at the window behind her, trying to ignore the strangeness of the moment with the girl standing over him, his most hated rival at the door downstairs, and the feeling of something cold in his gut where electric brilliance had flared only a moment ago.

"I uh—I'd better go," she said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the door in which she was already edging. Ryoga turned his head and watched her go, her long hair swinging loose as she walked. He didn't know what else he ought to do. He stayed like that until she left, then jumped sharply when she suddenly stuck her head back in the room.

"And if I come back up and find you not here I swear that there will be no hell like the one I'll unleash on you when I hunt you down again, you hear me?"

"Um—okay?" he squeaked out, in a complete return to the form of two days ago, and Ukyo gave him one of her grim, thoroughly scary little smiles before popping back out of the hall and clattering down the stairs.

Ryoga heard her open the door, and then Ranma's voice.

--

Ukyo dashed down the stairs, holding her yukata above her ankles to avoid getting tangled in the material and dieing an untimely and embarrassing death from plunging headlong down the short flight of stairs into the eerily darkened restaurant below.

"Coming!" she called, hurriedly unlocking the doors and cracking one of them—not that she'd expected anyone but Ranma, yet she felt no need particular need to flaunt her barefooted, yukata-clad self at her neighbors this early in the day. Ranma stood cockily on the walk with one hand in a pocket, the other in a jaunty, superfluous wave.

"Hey," he said cheerily.

"Aren't you early?" she quirked an eyebrow at him before ushering him inside, glancing pointedly at the clock near the stairs, visible even in the darkened room.

"I guess," he said, "But I still have to go home, beat the crap outta Pop, eat, and be late for school. I just didn't think I could do all that without stopping by here first."

Ukyo felt a smile cross her face at that, though she knew she was being ridiculous. Yet a brilliant warmth suffused her, emanating from her throat and chest, momentarily silencing her ability to speak with the thought that Ran-chan cared enough to be _worried_ about her.

But she should at least _ask_, right? No point in getting her hopes up only to have them ruthlessly dashed, as they inevitably, always were…

"Did you want to see Ryoga?" she asked, hesitancy audible in her voice. When Ranma merely shrugged, it was all she could do not to let out an explosive sigh of combined relief and unbridled joy.

"I don't really need to look at 'im, just as long as he's okay," her fiancée said suggestively, raising his eyebrows at her. Ukyo nodded, then, fearing that might be insufficient, hastened to add,

"He seems more…normal today, I guess. I mean he said he remembered the train—"

"Remembered? So, what, it's like more amnesia stuff?"

"I don't know." Holding the yukata closed with one hand for no particular reason, she ran her hand through her long hair with the other, making a face at how greasy it was—she hadn't been to the onsen since Ryoga had shown up, and now she felt smelly and disgusting. And here she was with her freaking _fiancée_ in her sleeping yukata, all rumpled and stinky and…and…

There were times when Ukyo really _really _hated her life.

"I don't know if he _forgot_, exactly, but more like he…didn't really know what was happening at the time…?" off Ranma's confused expression she added, "He said he remembered it sometime early this morning, like he'd known about it before but only realized it was…important, that it was, you know, dangerous, just a couple hours ago. Said he woke up in the middle of the night."

Ranma's expression didn't seem to be changing any. Ukyo drooped slightly.

"You wanna, uh, talk to him?" she asked, waving vaguely at the stairs. "Maybe he can explain it better than me."

"Well…" he hesitated, "Do you need me to help bring 'im to the doc's?"

"I don't know…" she wavered. "Wait here, let me see what kind of shape he's in."

Clattering back up the stairs, she had a sudden moment of surging, irrational fear as the events of yesterday ran up and down the skin of her arms, neck, and back, and her fingers itched to clench into fists for no other reason than that she feared to find the room empty a second time, truly felt the cold darkness of fear, as of plunging suddenly down, down, through the stairs, through the floor, past the sewer lines and phone lines and deep into the earth, into the blackness, into the sound of death shrieking out a nightmare like a terrible bird, a monster, a hand squeezing the life out of her—

The seven-step stairway brought her to the doorway of her room, and Ryoga was sitting quietly in the morning light and shadow, drinking his tea.

_I didn't die. I didn't die. I didn't I didn't_…

She fought herself for a split second, an instant when all the fear of dieing on the tracks came back to her, while the cause of all her terror of the previous day sat innocently in her room, and she opened and shut her mouth and thought of screaming at him, of storming into the room and slamming her hand on the table, or into his face, thought of snatching the teacup from his hands and flinging it out the window, thought of screaming, screaming, screaming—

But she hadn't died. And he hadn't died. And—and when she'd hit him yesterday he'd been confused and half out of his mind with something neither of them really understood and he sat there now more lost than he'd been at any other time she'd ever seen him and her anger, now, and all her fear and self-loathing and disgust and shame were of no use to her, here, in this moment, with the sun shining on his hair and off of his shoulders in the beautiful, still, and silent room.

For a moment her own shoulders trembled, and then they, too, were still.

"Ryoga, sugar," she said quietly.

He looked at her. She noticed the tear tracks on his face faint and shining, and pretended not to.

"Do you want to talk to Ranma?" she asked softly, and the lost boy shrugged. Her eyes narrowed slightly, a pale flicker of the anger that burned perpetually behind her shields of a good Osaka businesswoman flashing briefly across her face—the anger she allowed herself at Ryoga's apparent unwillingness to admit to what was so obviously written across his face.

_He wants to see someone normal,_ she thought bitterly, _Ran-chan is more normal than _me

But that wasn't fair. What sort of anchor to sanity could Ukyo offer, when she barely had a handle on a nearly-unquenchable rage from a lifetime of being the one nobody ever wanted, not even herself…of abandoning and being abandoned, of denying her true self to become an instrument of vengeance to no purpose whatsoever….

Ryoga _wanted _to talk to Ranma. It was written in every line of his body. He and Ranma were…well, she didn't know what they were supposed to be because it sure as hell wasn't like they were _friends_. Best enemies, maybe. Ranma was more a part of Ryoga's life than Ukyo had ever been. Actually almost everyone Ukyo knew was more a part of her Ran-chan's life than she was.

She allowed herself a small, weary sigh.

"Get up off your butt," she said, crossing to where he sat and ignoring his sudden flinch. "I promise not to hit you, but stand yourself up, will ya?" She started to reach down and get a hand under his shoulder, but he waved her off and got to his feet with no apparent difficulty, though she noticed when his fingers brushed lightly against the corner of her table.

Which was interesting.

"C'mon," she said, "We'll take you to the doctor's."

Downstairs Ranma grinned, Ryoga glared, Ranma made some inane crack about pork (_Again with the pork?_ Ukyo wondered.) and the two young men barely avoided breaking into a brawl right there in her restaurant—only Ukyo's stepping between them and cussing a blue streak that would have blistered the ears of even Genma Saotome prevented serious harm from befalling her precious grill and, by extension, her fiancée and erstwhile houseguest.

Aside from that the three of them made it without incident to Dr. Tofu's clinic, with the help of a taxi and Ukyo's grudging depletion of her own funds. She threatened to take the cost of the taxi out of both boys' hides if they didn't sit quietly and make nice with each other, and they succeeded in sitting docilely the entire way with hardly a peep and almost no property destruction at all.

Ryoga apologized profusely about the broken backseat ashtray when they arrived and he discovered what he'd done.

"I didn't know I was leaning on it so hard, ha-ha," he laughed nervously, scratching the back of his head, and Ranma groaned and rolled his eyes and Ukyo paid extra to cover the cost of the damage and her own humiliation, all the while grinding her heel hard into the lost boy's instep.

Not that he noticed in any way whatsoever.

--

Morning classes passed in something of a blur as teachers came and went on seemingly soundless feet, the noise of chalk on the blackboard like the whispering of hushed voices in a hospital room. Ukyo sat at her desk and kicked a slipper-clad toe against a hollow metal leg. She tried to take notes, but things seemed to be happening too quickly for her to keep up; every time she blinked the world had changed, people jumping from place to place in digital progression like moments seen between the clicking of a camera shutter. Strangely, the instants when her eyes closed, when she looked out at the darkness behind her eyes from deep within her own mind seemed to drag for long, desert-dry stretches. Ukyo found herself licking her lips at odd moments and aching for water.

When Akane came up to her during the ten minute interval between math and science, during which Ukyo was staring out the window and not doing anything very productive at all, she raised her eyes to regard the short-haired girl without much surprise. Probably Akane was about to chew her out for keeping Ranma occupied away from the Tendo's; probably she had already exacted her pound of flesh from Ran-chan's hide by the means of a vitriolic tirade or vengeful cooking spree. Ukyo was feeling the strangeness of the last few days to the core of her being at the moment, and she wasn't sure that she felt up to a confrontation with the "un-cute fiancée." As Akane approached Ukyo noticed that the muscles of her own shoulders and back were tensing, her spine hardening, as the girl everyone knew was the favorite in the race to win Ran-chan's heart stepped up to Ukyo's desk and opened her dainty, perfect little mouth.

"Are you okay?" Akane asked, and Ukyo felt her own mouth drop open for a fraction of a second before she remembered herself and shut it in a hurry. But…that was Akane, wasn't it? Always so concerned about other people. Genuinely concerned, full of goodwill and human feeling. Ran-chan was like that too….It was people like her and Ryoga who were consumed by selfish desires, by the need for revenge or a sense of inadequacy. Perpetual loneliness, endless failure…

"Fine," Ukyo said, harder and more tersely than she'd intended, and she winced internally at the sound of her own voice. She sounded the way old cracked paint on a wall looked. She cleared her throat slightly and swallowed dry saliva.

"Sorry," Ukyo told the other girl, trying to force a little lightness into her voice, sitting up a bit straighter and pushing her (disgustingly unwashed) hair out of her face. "It's been a…weird couple of days."

"I thought so." Akane nodded. "Ranma came home late last night and seemed pretty…spastic, I guess. More than usual for him, anyway." The girl glanced over at the desk the pigtailed boy typically occupied but he'd apparently stepped outside for the moment—Ukyo could hear crashing somewhere down the hall and suspected that Kuno was in the vicinity. The idiot.

"He ran out early this morning, too, and said it was something about Ryoga." The pale, short-haired girl went on, still staring at the vacated desk, then without warning turned back to Ukyo and squatting down, putting herself on eye-level with the seated girl, "Is Ryoga—is he okay?"

Ukyo looked at her, but hesitated before answering.

"Finally she cleared her dusty throat. "He's at Dr. Tofu's now," she said, and heard an unexpected note in her voice—sadness?

"He's—he's alright, isn't he?" Akane's voice quavered slightly. Ukyo raised her eyebrows.

"Dr. Tofu's the only one who can tell you that," she said. "Guess you're really worried about him, huh?"

"He's a friend of mine," Akane said simply. And that really said everything anyone needed to know about Tendo Akane.

"Well, he—" but Ukyo was nowhere near to being ready to talk about the events of the previous day, and had _absolutely_ no intention of discussing Ryoga's little impromptu stroll down the path of Certain, Bloody and Painful Death. She shuddered internally and on the surface it became a strange little gesture, smoothing out the broad surface of her desktop with flattened palms and spread fingers, as though she were swimming.

"Ranma won't tell me what's happening," Akane continued, getting to her feet. Students were streaming back into the room. The chime sounded. Over the noise and chaos of it Ukyo almost missed Akane saying,"I asked Cologne if she would help."

Ukyo blinked up at her, as the sound of the science teacher's voice haranguing Ranma thundered down the hall. She wondered why she hadn't thought to ask Cologne for help.

_Probably because of Shampoo_, she mused. Ukyo would never willingly visit the Nekohanten unless compelled to be some outside threat or force, and the thought did not recommend itself to her now even in light of events of the previous day, and all her newly-acquired insights into Ryoga's current mental…situation. But Akane…Akane moved easily between the small, almost mutually exclusive spheres of the girls who should for all intense and purposes have simply been her rivals, who thought of her (well Shampoo did anyway) as little more than an obstacle. Ukyo liked to think she was a little more adult about her dealings with Akane, but even so—had she been in the same position, would she have considered seeking out the old matron for help? In her heart, Ukyo doubted that very much. Akane, though, did it all easily, without fear or hesitation, and she did it for a friend. Not even out of love.

Ukyo, after all, held no illusions about Akane's true feelings for Ryoga—at least as they currently stood.

"That was…probably a good idea," Ukyo said faintly, through strangely stiffened lips. Akane looked a bit relieved at the comment and Ukyo had a sudden flash of sympathy for the girl, worrying about Ryoga all on her own at the Tendo's.

"Can we talk more at lunch?" Akane asked then, and Ukyo found herself nodding, feeling slow and stupid next to the vibrant, caring girl. Akane scurried back to her seat at the same moment that the science teacher stalked into the room, driving a chastened Ranma before him. Ukyo saw Akane catch her (their?) fiancee's eye and mouth the word, "Lunchtime" at him, and the pigtailed boy glanced back at Ukyo and then again at Akane before nodding, jaw set and looking uncharacteristically serious.

It was going to be a long couple of hours until lunch time. They had a hell of a lot to talk about.

--

He sat on the edge of the bed with his elbows on his knees and his hands loosely clasped, and stared out of the window. It had a screen, which was fortunate and a bit unusual, and the sound of the wind in the trees like the noise of a distant tide poured into the room and washed clean the walls, the sheets, his hands, and all the surfaces of things.

He'd forgotten, for a little while, how vast the world was. Forgotten its hugeness, the all-encompassing emptiness, the storm of impossible silence that grew with every breath, every step, every tiny prayer exhaled into the hollow void all around. Exhaled into unbeing.

"Mr. Hibiki?"

He looked up. The doctor was there, smiling. He smiled back because it seemed to be the appropriate response, and in the distance chimes were ringing with a sound like nothing else in all the world.

"I'd forgotten," he said, without moving his hands at all. The doctor came into the room.

"Forgotten what?" the taller man asked. Ryoga nodded in the direction of the window.

"There. What's there."

"Outside?" Dr. Tofu looked more closely. "The trees? The wall?"

"Something else," Ryoga told him quietly.

_In a high place, the noise of the wind A great distance. The ocean, the stars, and the sky. _

_Absolution. Stillness without pain._

_What would you give up?_

Inhale.

A moment.

Exhale.

"What would you give up?"

"Mr. Hibiki!"

Ryoga inhaled suddenly and his eyes snapped wide open, and only then did he realize that he'd closed them. The doctor was standing over him, looking concerned—when had he come into the room? Ryoga looked up at him and proffered a faint, bemused smile. There was a distance in the things around him, a translucency of being that had nothing whatsoever to do with vision.

"What just happened, Mr. Hibiki?"

Ryoga, mouth still slightly open, shut it before shaking his head and rubbing his eyes.

"I think---I think I must be tired. I didn't sleep much last night…"

"You said something just now, before you opened your eyes."

"Did I?"

"You don't remember?"

Ryoga shook his head. His lips were dry. His mouth was dry. He was tired.

"You said, 'What would you give up?'"

Ryoga blinked rapidly, trying to clear is blurring vision, to push aside the exhaustion. He licked his lips and swallowed.

"That's a strange thing to say," Ryoga heard himself say, distantly. His mouth seemed to move by itself and once again the words were individual and bright against his lips, teeth, and tongue. Like melting ice water, like drops of individual melody trapped forever in singular instants the moment that they occurred.

The doctor was looking at him carefully. Finally, he let out a soft, faint breath.

"Yes," the doctor said to him quietly. "Yes, I suppose it is."

* * *

_A/N: Sorry for the delay on this--I had quite a bit of material drafted for chapter 5 which I've scrapped, so I had to create about half this chapter out of thin air when I went to put it together. Thus, it took a good bit longer than I'd hoped it would. I'm not quite sure when 6 will be ready to go, so please be patient. _

_To those who have taken the time to review, a special thanks. A story like this really can't stand on its own legs; it needs a little help. I really appreciate everyone who has taken a moment to let me know their thoughts on this. ()_


	6. Samudya

6: samudaya (attachment, desire/the origin of suffering)

"You're a man of hidden depths," Dr. Tofu said to him later. Ryoga was sitting propped up on the bed's pillows and doing his best to while away the time with the thickest book he'd been able to find on the doctor's shelves: Natsume Sōseki's _I am a Cat._

"I didn't take you for the bookish type," the doctor clarified, smiling slightly and gesturing at the book in the boy's large, rough hands. Ryoga didn't bristle at the offhanded statement. He knew that the doctor wasn't the sort of person to take a swipe at somebody to make himself feel important; he was merely stating a fact. Ryoga _didn't_ look like the bookish type. Even after having cleaned up in the clinic's little shower and donning a fresh set of soft pajamas which the doctor kept on hand for use by his...unique patients...Ryoga remained a powerfully muscled, droopy-haired individual and generally seemed more suited to rampaging about the place smashing things to pieces than sitting quietly on a bed engrossed in a tome of mammoth proportions.

"I'm really not," Ryoga told the doctor mildly. Shutting the heavy book and setting it aside, he sat up and dangled his legs over the edge of the bed. "But when there's nothing to do for hours and hours..." he shrugged.

"Test results take time, I'm afraid," the doctor said apologetically.

"You don't mind me borrowing, do you?" Ryoga asked, and the doctor waved a dismissive hand. "Is it okay if I walk around? I've been stuck here for a while..."

"Well..." the doctor hesitated, frowning slightly, "It's not what I'd wish you to do, but I suppose that just a bit of moving around the clinic would be acceptable. I'd ask that you not over-exert yourself, though. A few minutes at a time, and no more."

"All right," Ryoga said carefully, amazed all over again by the sound of the words.

Speech was an extraordinary thing. A beautiful human thing. He picked up the book and smoothed his thumb over the cool surface of the cover. After a few more cautionary words the doctor left him alone, and Ryoga kicked his heels against the smooth bright floor. After a few moments he sighed and set the book aside, on the soft soft white clinic bed, and got up and went over to the window. He rested his left hand on the stiff pearl-grey curtain and looked out at the trees and the little garden the doctor maintained, and at the whitewashed stone wall overgrown with moss and vines. The sun sparked, bright and real, over the fresh green leaves and the new shoots and stems of spring, bending and waving in a gentle breeze. An airplane passed overhead, too high to leave a trail, angling off toward the horizon. Ryoga watched it for a while, wondering where it was going and how many people were going with it. The fuselage flashed in the April sun.

It was now well after three o'clock. He'd been at the clinic since around six. The experience had proved to be exactly as tedious as being trapped in Ukyo's little tatami room, with the added bonus that much of the place was done up in varying shades of white and grey. In addition, a lovely antiseptic aroma permeated the air and made his hair stand on end if he allowed himself to think about it for even a moment. It was the nasal equivalent of nails on a blackboard.

Ryoga knew that he needed more practical experience at being indoors for long stretches at a time. Other people managed it easily; the doctor wasn't climbing the walls to get away from the smell and Ukyo herself seemed more than comfortable hanging around inside the little box with two stories that she called a home. Once upon a time Ryoga himself had attended school and spent the better part of his time in his own home, or at the very least in his neighborhood, but his sense of direction seemed to have grown drastically worse over the last year or so that he'd been hunting Ranma. He hadn't even seen his own house in six months. It was ridiculous!

He turned back the bed where the book lay still and unalive. The silence of the room moved slowly in the spaces between the walls, like the rippling of curtains in an invisible breeze. He could feel his exhaustion scrabbling at his eyelids and up and down the back of his neck, cold and dry like the fingers of an old woman. He shuddered convulsively, a kind of slow creeping shiver that turned into a brief uncontrollable spasm that twitched his shoulders, arms, hands and spine—a moment of organic reality, a capitulation to his humanity. Hibiki Ryoga was not indestructible. He rubbed the back of his neck and resisted the urge to run a hand through his thick hair. Despite the shower and the soft white pajamas he'd been fitted with, Ryoga still felt filthy. The convenience of the heated shower could do nothing for his hair, which the good doctor had kindly informed him in no uncertain terms he was not allowed to wash, and Ryoga had been subjected to what he now considered to be one of the five great humiliations of his life.

He'd worn a shower cap.

The memory of it made him shudder all over again.

Somewhere a clock struck the quarter-hour, and Ryoga heard a door opening and shutting, and soft voices, and then the sound of footsteps in the hall, far too light to be Dr. Tofu's. For some reason a sudden electric feeling snapped through his skull: lighting without thunder.

"Ukyo?" he called, and then wondered why.

A familiar face presented itself at the doorway, then, on top of a body leaning comfortably against the jamb, hands in her pockets.

"Yo," Ranma said, barefoot and with her sleeves rolled up to accommodate her smaller female frame.

"Ranma," Ryoga said in surprise, "What are you doing here?"

"Came to check on ya." She pushed away from the door and padded across the room, female hips making her walk something decidedly less masculine than the boy used in his more ordinary form. Ryoga barely noticed, except for the brief surge of jealousy that stabbed through him at the fact that at least Ranma could _walk on two legs_ even when he'd been transformed.

Life was so unfair.

"Why would you—" Ryoga began, as Ranma bounced onto the bed in the exact way he would have done as a man, yet somehow seeming offensively cute in doing so as a girl. Dr. Tofu's book, disturbed the by the jostling of the mattress, started to slip off the bed and Ryoga yelped and dove for it, catching it just before it hit the floor.

"Why the hell are you a girl, anyway?" he demanded nastily, planting his butt on the floor and drawing his legs up into an Indian-style sitting position, cradling the book protectively. He shot an irritated glare at the boy trapped in a girl's body and bared a bit of fang in a partial sneer, just to remind his well-wisher that he didn't need her/his pity, thank-you-very-much.

"Freak rainstorm," Ranma said airily, and Ryoga growled low in his throat at this reminder of how small an inconvenience Ranma's curse really was, and how little it interfered with the pigtailed boy's day-to-day life. Ranma was the only victim of Jusenkyo who attended school regularly—how fair was that? "Doc's boilin' some water for me now." She squinted down at Ryoga. "Why you sittin' on the floor?"

"I like the floor!" Ryoga snapped. There was no way in _any_ world he was going to sit on any bed, anywhere, with a busty, _extremely_ female Ranma. The visual image alone was enough to make him want to go beat his head against a wall until the entire building fell down around them.

"Ain't it dirty?" Ranma crouched and peered over the edge of the bed in a catlike pose. Ryoga scowled.

"It ai—it's not dirty! And where'd you learn to speak Japanese anyway, from a bunch of homeless bums?"

"Nothin' wrong with my Japanese," Ranma growled, grinding a pointy elbow into the top of Ryoga's head. "If you're not gonna get up here so's I can talk to you like a normal person, I guess I'd better come down there." She popped off the bed and on to the floor. They glared at each other a bit, being longtime enemies and all.

"So, uh," Ranma said eventually, leaning back in a posture of complete comfort with legs folded up in the lotus position, "Ukyo said you remembered 'bout almost bein' clobbered yesterday."

"She _did_ clobber m—oh, you mean the train?"

"Yah."

"Oh." Ryoga looked down at the book where it rested in his lap. "Yeah. About two or three o'clock this morning...I remembered." His voice faded into silence and he bit back a sigh.

"So I guess you were real grateful to Ucchan for savin' your life 'n stuff, right?"

"Uh...I suppose..."

Ranma snorted. "Ya better be, or I'll beat a damn confession of gratitude outta ya, even with a hole in your piggy head."

"Empty threats, Ranma, empty threats."

"Watch your mouth, Porky," Ranma snapped. "Anyway, if you remembered about the train maybe it means you remembered—"

"Your _girlfriend_?" Ryoga drawled, and was rewarded when Ranma's blushed a delicate pink and then punched him in the arm.

"I mean _Akane_, you jerk," she growled.

"It isn't like that, though," Ryoga continued in a genial tone, eyes fixed on some distant point as he grabbed Ranma and smushed his fists against her shell-like ears. "I mean I always _remembered_ about the train, it was just that I didn't understand how it could hurt me." A punch to the stomach from a tiny fist like a piston doubled him over and Ranma sat up, massaging her ears.

"So you're not getting' your memories back then?"

"No," said Dr. Tofu as he entered and upended a large kettle over Ranma. "And I would ask that you please refrain from physically attacking my patient any more, Ranma."

"Sorry, doc."

"I'm sure this sort of behavior is perfectly normal for the two of you," Dr. Tofu went on, gazing sternly at both of the contrite-seeming young men, as steam rose from one of them and dissipated gently into the air. "But, as to difficult as it may be for you to believe, Ryoga most emphatically does _not_ need any more holes in his head. That means the both of you behave or I'll throw _you_ out," here he pointed at Ranma, "And _you_ can discover all of the delightful wonders of enforced bed rest. Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes doctor," the chorused.

"And get up off of the floor," the doctor added on his way out the door. "Come sit on the couches out front if you must."

Ranma, hopping easily to his feet in a smooth, gravity-defying motion, glanced at Ryoga and to his surprise saw the bandana-less boy getting up with some difficulty—barely a fractional hesitation that anyone else would not even have noticed, but to Ranma's trained eye it spoke volumes. He pursed his lips. Sure, him and Ryoga weren't exactly best buddies or whatever, but...

On the other hand, there was no way in hell Ryoga'd forgive him for offering to help—if anything the idiot would probably try to kill him right then and there in the little room. Ranma shook his head hard, like a dog, sending lukewarm drops of water flying in every direction. Ryoga gave an irritated, spluttering cry of indignation.

"The goddamn hell is wrong with you?" the lost boy demanded, wiping his face and, Ranma noted, leaning heavily on the bed as he did so. While the other boy was thus distracted, Ranma grabbed his by the shoulders and started hustling him down the hall. Ryoga gave a startled squawk when he was grabbed and immediately began protesting, even as he was wiping Ranma-water out of his eyes.

"What the hell are you doing you cross-dressing idiot? Damn you to hell Ranma, I can walk on my own, my legs aren't broken you—"

He finally shut up when Ranma shoved him unceremoniously into a comfy chair and perched himself on the arm of the couch. Ryoga's face was a stormy red.

"I'm not _broken,_" Ryoga growled, in his most menacing Ranma-prepare-to-die tones, "I don't need your _help."_

"Kept ya from wanderin' off, didn't I?" Ranma dismissed his anger with a wave and ignored Ryoga's animal growl. "An' I didn't give ya a piggyback or nothin' so just quit your squealin' already."

Ryoga's hands gripped the arms of the chair he'd been dropped into, and Ranma heard the sounds of splintering wood.

"Ranmaaaaaaa—" the lost boy began in a low snarl, but was prevented from completing the thought by the well-timed arrival of two girls, one clad in a powder-blue jumper and t-shirt combo, the other in a boy's school uniform. "Prepare to—Ukyo!"

The change was instantaneous and, to anyone who didn't know the boy better, would have been remarkable. Ryoga 'eep'd' and sat back quickly in the chair, trying hard to appear as if he'd been resting quietly and not at all about to leap across the coffee table at Ranma and attempt to pummel the pigtailed boy into oblivion.

Ukyo was not fooled in the slightest. Eyes narrowing, she kicked off her sneakers and marched across the room to stand directly in front of the mighty young man, who cringed.

"Have you been _fighting?_" she roared at him, and even Akane flinched.

"No, Ukyo!"

"It's true!" Ranma said hastily, getting to his feet and laying a placating hand on Ukyo's slim shoulders. "No fighting here!" He'd seen how angry the girl had been the previous day and had hoped that a good night's rest might have put a damper on some of her more violent tendencies toward his longtime rival. Apparently that was not the case.

Ukyo, for her part, seethed outwardly, while internally trying to ignore Ranchan's heavy warm hand on her shoulder, and the strange dismay the sight of the wide-eyed boy with the bandaged head in front of her engendered.

God, what was _wrong_ with her? And what the hell was the matter with Ryoga? Couldn't he learn to rest quietly for _two freaking seconds together_ without picking some sort of fight? Arrrgh, he was such a—a loser, a jerk, a _jackass_! Dammit!!

Shrugging of Ranma's hand, she resisted the urge to throw her bag across the room in frustration and took two sharp steps away, turning her back so no one could see her face. The lunchtime discussion between herself, Ranma, and Akane had been somewhat calming, but it hadn't done a whole hell of a lot for her awareness of how filthy she still was, nor had it done anything to decrease the strange sensation that seemed to be filling her at this moment, like cold water pouring into a dark hollow place. Her chest rose and fell sharply as she fought for mastery of herself. Why did she feel so horrible, so hollow, so empty? What was this taste in her mouth? What was this darkness at the edge of the world, what was this grief that consumed her?

She swallowed and blinked rapidly.

"I think some introductions are in order," she heard Akane saying from somewhere behind her, and swallowing again she turned, sniffling slightly and hoping no-one would notice. Ryoga was looking at the short-haired girl with a slightly bemused expression.

"But we already met, yesterday," the lost boy offered, shifting slightly in the chair, but trailed off under the weird stares both Akane and Ranma were giving him. He sighed and looked down at his hands. "...but...it wasn't r-really yesterday, was it?" he finished in a small voice. Akane shook her head.

"I'm sorry for the way I reacted," she said. Ryoga's gaze remained fixed on his lap, and he absently lifted a hand to finger the fresh white bandages that until now he'd almost managed to forget were there.

"I'm sorry I don't remember you," he told her quietly. And he _was_ sorry, because she seemed like a nice person, and if they _did_ know each other--even without the whole dubious "love" question--.it still seemed unfair to her that he simply had no recollection. How could something like this have even happened? How did an acquaintance turn into a stranger overnight, how was a face wiped from memory altogether, along with all the other aspects that made up a human being? Size and shape, voice and gestures. What about the way she smiled, or the way her hand moved when she talked, or the way she carried herself when she walked? What about the reflection of the sunlight off the skin of her hand when she clutched her school bag in slender fingers? How could something like that be removed? It wasn't a matter of "forgetting" or "remembering," it was as if...

As if something had been ripped out of him, something as real as the bones of his feet or the tongue in his mouth. Something that _belonged _to him had been taken. He'd been robbed.

They both had.

"I don't think it's your fault," Akane was saying. Ryoga blinked up owlishly at her. "Ukyo," the short-haired girl continued, "She told me you're missing a month of your life. Is that—" she swallowed, as if the thought pained her. "Is it true?"

"Mm." He nodded dropping his eyes, feeling somehow ashamed. But he _should_ be ashamed, shouldn't he? After all, out of the four people currently in the room he was the only one with a crippling gap in his memory, wasn't he? And here the rest of them were, crowded around him, staring down with eyes full of what looked so very much like pity….He swallowed. And Ukyo'd come in looking like she wanted nothing more than to sock him in the jaw, and his fists still itched to pay Ranma back for his earlier digs, and now...now this Akane person's eyes were full of a shining sadness all on account of _him_ and...and...

And he couldn't even remember how he knew her.

He pushed back a little farther into the chair, pressing his spine into softness and licking his lips. Not knowing where else to turn he shot a pleading look in Ukyo's direction. To his neverending astonishment she caught his gaze, and sudden understanding flashed across her face.

"Come over here a sec, Ranchan," she said sweetly, and Ryoga jerked in shock at the sudden speed with which Akane pivoted on her heel at the exact moment that Ukyo took Ranma's hand and started dragging him in the direction of the couch, cuddling up to him in a most fiancée-like manner, making little cooing noises.

"Rrrannnnmaaa!" the girl in front of Ryoga went from sweet and concerned to demonic rage in less time than a formula-1 racer took to go 0-60, miss the hairpin turn, and barrel off the tracks into the defenseless,cr wd. Ryoga first winced, then gaped as Akane decked her fiancée, slamming his face through the tiled floor with a single practiced, well-placed blow. Chunks of tile and fine white dust flew up all around them. Ukyo stepped aside with a bored expression as debris rained around her feet; apparently this extraordinary violence qualified as a fairly ordinary occurrence. Ryoga thought he saw her stifle a yawn, but it might have been his imagination.

_Maybe that's why I was in love with her?_ Ryoga pondered bemusedly, and only realized his mouth was hanging open when Ukyo leaned across the table, reached out a long hand, and shut it with a quiet _click_.

"Is that...normal?" he sounded shell-shocked to his own ears. Ukyo just shrugged as she settled back on the couch.

"'Bout as normal as anything 'round here ever is," Ranma grumbled, peeling his face off the floor with an audible _pop!_ Ryoga only counted it a blessing that Akane hadn't cracked a water main with the blunt instrument of her fiancée's skull. Ryoga just _knew _that would have ended unpleasantly for him. Things like that always did.

"What's all the noise out here?" Dr. Tofu asked, padding into the room on slippered feet and completely ignoring the massive hole in the middle of the floor. "Oh! Akane, Miss Ukyo, I didn't know you were here! Would you like some tea?"

The girls were suddenly all sweetness and sugar cookies as they chorused an affirmative, and Ranma groused as he flung himself down in the chair next to Ryoga's and as far away from Akane as currently possible. Cracking the tile had left his face a bit red, and Ryoga couldn't help but grin at his discomfort.

"Ya better wipe that smartass grin offa your face, pig-boy," Ranma growled in a low voice, audible only two the two of them. Ryoga brushed some imaginary dirt off his knees and went right on grinning. Akane and Ukyo settled on the couch across from them and when the doctor entered he brought for a moment a serenity that encompassed the entire room, so that Ranma didn't even launch an attack on the still-grinning lost boy—not even when Ryoga snagged the _manjuu_ that he'd obviously been reaching for. It was probably just a coincidence, after all. Yeah. That was it: a coincidence.

The girls chatted lightly about school, and Ranma joined in animatedly after a few moments of extended sulking, cheering right up and seeming to have completely forgotten the violence of the previous moment completely. _And I'm the one with a memory problem, _Ryoga mused, marveling at the ease with which Ranma shrugged off insults to his person; then again, considering the madness that made up the lives of Ryoga and everyone he knew, perhaps Ranma's attitude was more suited to dealing with the insanity. It was probably to the benefit of a great many people that Ranma wasn't the sort to hold a grudge over every personal slight.

On the other hand, maybe the pig-tailed boy was just an idiot. Watching Ranma guffaw loudly at some bone-headed remark he himself had made, Ryoga figured the 'idiot' hypothesis was probably a lot more viable.

Ryoga tried to glance surreptitiously at Akane as he nibbled on the snacks, attempting to catch a glimpse of anything, any one thing, which might trigger a spark of recognition for the girl whom both Ukyo _and_ Ranma had insisted was the object of his undying affection. Honestly, he wasn't sure how well he was managing at being surreptitious, though. He knew that he wasn't exactly the most gifted of individuals when it came to things like subterfuge, or anything as complex as actual _lying_.

But...

But...

Hadn't he been, once?

There...was there something? At that moment, when she turned her head, when the sunlight flashed off the curve of her throat? And she smiled, and Ukyo said something that made her laugh, and she closed her eyes briefly as her lips parted in genuine amusement.

Some other time. Some other place.

_Did I lie to you?_ He asked silently, blinking rapidly, trying to hear the noise of voices over the sounds of memories that weren't there. Someone touched his face, someone kissed him lightly, someone...

_someone whispered, _

_"the stars remain steadfast"_

_remain steadfast_

His realized that his head hurt. Pain, there was pain, unaccountable and distant and dull. How long had it been hurting? Had it only begun to, or had he only just noticed it now? Akane, face still transfigured with something like joy, smiled at him with unbearable kindness. There were lights in the distance, faint lights, and oscillations of sound...

_What would you give up?_

The sounds a rushing of the tides or a finger on a glass, wind-chimes ringing and ringing in endless circular sound, metal, glass, refracting brilliances in edges and fractured light—

"Ryoga man, you okay?"

He blinked, and remembered to breathe, and realized that he was staring at a point somewhere beyond the wall, half-eaten _manjuu_ gripped lightly in one hand, the other hand almost, but not quite, touching the side of his skull.

His chest rose and fell with light, shallow breaths. Cold, clean, rushing like water.

"H-headache," he said, eyes fixing once again on Akane whose mouth had become a little "o" of concern. He squeezed his eyes shut . "Hurts..."

"Do you remember something?" came the girl's voice, and it grated, an agony of cracking ice. He shook his head, then gasped with renewed pain as the gesture rushed down the inside of his skull to his spine like falling stones crashing down the side of a mountain. He pressed a closed fist to his forehead and his mouth opened in a voiceless cry. Air rushed into the empty space where his jaw came unhinged, filling the hollow space. There was a crash, somewhere else, and someone shouted something.

"Oh god..." a man's voice—the doctor? And footsteps, someone running into the room. "Ranma, help me—get his other shoulder, we have to..."

Strong hands grasped his arms, lifted him on both sides to stand, and his hands clenched and unclenched as his body tried to curl in on itself. In a matter of moments, in the midst of a great darkness and terrible light, he felt the world subsume him. There was a voice somewhere. He didn't know where it came from. He didn't know where it went. The world opened at his feet; he saw the rushing darkness, and a light filled all his vision. Came from nowhere, went to nowhere. Breath filled his body: water and air, sunlight and glass, snow falling into cherry blossoms into white skin into emptiness. He stumbled into nothingness, he saw the shapes of trees, he heard a chaos of noise from some great distance, a clashing of cymbals, a crying of horns. Voices shouting unintelligibly and the autumn sun shone on the trunks of trees and he was falling down, through the grass, into depth, into darkness, into the deep earth and in the distance he heard the voices of birds, and a girl was crying.

white light

stars

pain

_someone said_

breathe

"The stars remain steadfast."

Dust-dry, the desert. A waste of sand and burning sunlight. The blue cracking sky snapping wide like the wings of a bird lifted on the wind, moving up, back and away. Away the sky and all shadows, away the coolness of the deep earth, and all stillness of mind. Away the dreams of cool darkness, galleries of trees, deep wildernesses. Vast the sky and the enormous blue emptiness, the falling without falling that subsumes all self: enormous, huge, hollow, wide.

_goodbye Tokyo_

_goodbye, goodbye..._

The thunder of the wind came upon him without warning, blowing up in a storm of flying sand that assaulted his eyes, nose and mouth. He squeezed his eyes shut and clamped his jaw closed and clapped his hands over his ears to shield them. He fell onto his knees and huddled into a ball, trying to protect as much of his body as possible from the driving, shrieking horror.

Ryoga huddled close to the ground as the stinging sands lashed him, shredded his clothes and tore at his hair like steel-strong fingers. He fought to draw breath after agonized breath in the midst of the tumultuous frenzy. The shriek of the wind was the voice of an old woman, and in the darkness behind his tightly clamped eyes he thought that he momentarily caught a glimpse of wild, flying hair.

The wind died to a low howling after some interminable stretch of time; long moments of air-less agony during which he struggled with increasing desperation against the weakness of his own body. Finally he let his hands fall from where they clutched at the sides of his head, and, gasping, he allowed his body to slump sideways on to the sand. The clouds and noise were lifting, and from far away a great silence rolled in.

As the last of the winds died, Ryoga drew a clear breath. He opened his eyes. His breath came in deep hard gasps and he swallowed once or twice, laying a hand on his chest, forcing air into his lungs.

"God..." he whispered hoarsely. The dry air had sucked all moisture from his mouth.

_goodbye Tokyo_

He stood up, looking around, turning in a circle.

"Ranma? Doctor? Ukyo? A...Akane?"

The wind answered: nothing, nothing.

He looked down at his hands. The backs were reddened from the abuse of the sand. His clothes had been shredded. But he wasn't wearing the white pajamas the doctor had so kindly lent him to wear. No, he was in his usual clothes, black shirt and pants, battered shoes, socks and leg bindings. Cautiously he lifted a hand, and felt the familiar and lately-absent well-worn softness of his usual bandanna.

"Is this really happening?" he asked, because it seemed a logical question. But if it was a dream he wouldn't be asking, would he? He pushed two fingers against the side of his head, gingerly at first, then when there was no pain he pushed harder, harder, against the spot where the hole had been, where something had been...had been...

Been torn out of him. Something had been torn out of his head.

Some knowledge. Some feeling, some quality of self.

But there was no pain. Only the silence of the desert, the vastness of the chalk-blue sky. And the sun, the sun...

He looked down at the ground and saw, resting innocuously in the sand close to where he'd been lying a few moments before, the black bulk of his lately missing pack, red umbrella perched neatly atop it. He licked his dry lips and glanced around. When had he seen a desert? The last time there had been a desert he'd been...

He'd been...

Dreaming?

_Peering into the blackness...scrub, grasses...hills limned in moonlight_

_Someone said, "What would you give up?"_

"What would you...?" he exhaled the words. Hadn't the doctor said...he'd asked...something. Some broken thing. Dreams and memories and the pain that was gone.

The desert at night.

_Someone said_

_"Goodbye, Tokyo."_

He reached down with a hesitant hand and lightly touched the straps of his pack. He expected something, some electric spark, but there was nothing. Just the roughness of the material and, when he lifted it, the familiar, comfortable weight of his whole life.

He pulled the umbrella out through the straps that bound it to the top of the pack and opened it experimentally. Absolutely nothing happened, except that it offered some minor protection from the relentless, copper coin sun.

Rooting in the pack, he saw all the items that had been there the last time that he'd seen it. How long ago had that been? A month; that was what Ukyo had said. It was pretty hard to believe. And where the hell was he now, anyway? He pulled out one of his precious canteens and allowed himself a couple of mouthfuls of water, then clipped it to the outside of the pack where it would be within easy reach. Grabbing a yellow long-sleeved shirt he hastily exchanged it for the black one and, with a comfortable practiced motion he once again shouldered the reassuring weight of the pack.

Holding the umbrella over his head, thankful for the small shade it offered, he picked a direction at random and started walking.

--

"Well shit," Ranma said as he back out of the room while Dr. Tofu did...doctorly things, and Ryoga's limp body lay unresponsive on the recently mussed white sheets. The lost boy's head lolled and although his eyes were half-open only the whites were visible. Ryoga's eyelids fluttered as though he struggled in the midst of some dream.

Akane and Ucchan came racing down the hall just as he was leaving the room, and Ranma fielded them both, spreading his arms wide and shaking his head, then gently but firmly hustling them both back into the front waiting area.

"What the _hell_ is going on?" Ukyo demanded, stomping her foot, eyes bright and wide. Ranma stammered; he didn't really feel that he was in a position to answer that question.

"I don't—I, he just kind of, I mean you saw what I saw right? So you know as much as I do at this point—"

Akane was glowing with a faint battle aura, though she seemed momentarily unsure whether she ought to direct it at Ranma or not—this was a rare situation where circumstances were for once not obviously directly due to some boneheaded action on Ranma's part.

"I want to see him!" Ucchan demanded, trying to shove past Ranma's larger, heavier frame, but Ranma was for once in no mood allow her to have her own way, and resisted as best he could by simply not moving. "Dammit Ranchan, is he sick? What the hell is _happening_ back there? Get out of my way!"

"Ucchan, please I—I don't think—"

"Perhaps," interjected an aged, dry voice, that sent a thrill up Ranma's spine in spite of himself, and caused even Ukyo to blanch slightly, "Perhaps you two young ladies, if it isn't too much trouble, might let the good doctor work in peace while he struggles to protect the life of your friend. Unless, of course, you wish him to be permanently damaged, in which case by all means you ought to go dashing down that corridor and putting yourself in the doctor's way."

As one, the three martial artists turned to regard the impossibly tiny, wizened form seated on the couch's green upholstery. They gawped at her as Cologne calmly polished off the last of her manjuu, then sipped nonchalantly at Akane's lukewarm tea.

In a sudden flurry of motion Dr. Tofu almost ran into the room, headed for the nearest telephone.

"I'm going to call an ambulance," he was saying rapidly, "Ranma, Ukyo, Akane, I want you to—"

"I would highly recommend against that course of action," the Amazon Matriarch interrupted smoothly. Dr. Tofu stopped with his hand halfway to the phone and his jaw dropped.

"What are _you_ doing here?" he asked in a decidedly unimpressed-by-3,000-years-of-Chinese-history sort of voice. The children didn't even see the old woman move; she was simply suddenly across the room and casually whacking Tofu in the head with her staff, known and feared wherever disrespectful martial artists congregated. Ukyo and Akane both winced at the hollow "Thunk!"

"Young man, I am here because Miss Tendo asked that I assist with this somewhat unusual problem. I believe that my unique expertise in all matters mystical may be more helpful in resolving the circumstances in which Mr. Hibiki and by extension my son-in-law and the two girls here have found themselves embroiled."

"But didn't you just get through telling us not to get in the doctor's way?" Ukyo demanded, hoisting a skeptical eyebrow. She hadn't liked the way the Matriarch referred to her as one of 'the two girls', as if she didn't even warrant being addressed by her own name. She flinched involuntarily when the scary old lady glanced in her direction, but remarkably no violence was forthcoming.

"Indeed I did, Miss. Kuonji, but that is because the two of you are _children_," she gave the word a special quality of not-quite-scorn that only a 300 year old bat of a woman could possibly enunciate with such relish, "Whereas I myself am actually in a position to help your Mr. Hibiki. Or perhaps you would rather he were shipped off to the hospital where his mental state will continue to degrade until he is finally left as merely a shell of the person you once knew? This is not a condition that can be resolved by your modern medicine." Here she turned back to the doctor, who was standing with one hand resting on the telephone, clearly unwilling to take the word of the old woman at face value, no matter how many times he had witnessed the effectiveness of ancient Chinese and Japanese magic and techniques in interrupting the lives of unsuspecting martial artists.

Ukyo was busy muttering how Ryoga wasn't 'her' anything, but both Cologne and the doctor were ignoring her. Instead, Dr.Tofu said, simply, "You have two minutes to explain yourself. After that, if you can't convince me, I'm calling an ambulance and sending him to the nearest hospital."

"Fair enough," Cologne said simply, and tapped the tip of her staff lightly against the tiled floor as she paused for a moment, then began to speak.

"As you may or may not know there are a great many demons, monsters, gods and lesser deities which remain in the world today long after their followers and those cultures which once worshiped them have disappeared forever from the face of the earth. The tribes and nations which reside in the Byankala mountains near my home are one such example of these remnants of ancient eras, though they are by far neither the most powerful, nor the most ancient--and those beings are mortal for the most part. Beings of much greater power exist, many of whom predate human beings by thousands or even millions of years.

"At Akane Tendo's request, I researched Mr. Hibiki's condition—what little I've been able to find out about it and observe for myself--using what resources I have available to me here, all of which I assure you are far more esoteric than any which you yourself possess, my young doctor, though I do find your overall willingness to delve into the knowledge of ancient traditions very admirable. At any rate, through diligent research and some hasty fortune-telling, I've been able to discern some of the cause of the young man's problem."

Dr. Tofu eased his hand off the phone, but his brow remained furrowed and his lips were pressed tightly together. He waited for the woman to continue.

Cologne was not in the least discomfited by the stern silence of the young man who towered over her. She continued, "I can say with great confidence that Ryoga's condition will only continue to worsen, and that exposing him at this point to Akane was a grave error, and one which has hastened the degeneration."

"_What_ degeneration?" Ukyo demanded, and was ignored. Akane tightly gripped Ukyo's left arm with both small strong hands, and met her eyes imploringly. Ukyo subsided, with a strange sense of gratitude for the unexpected contact.

"Ryoga has a mark on him. I don't yet know which mark it is, but I have been able to observe enough of the damage to his _ki_ to be able to say that at I strongly believe I can at least identify the nature the being that is responsible for his memory loss, his loss of time, and for the injury to his head and mind."

"Then—it's a person? It's something _alive?" _Ukyo leaned forward eagerly, and only Akane's tight grip on her arm prevented her from dashing across the room and attempting to lift Cologne up by the front of her shirt—a decidedly suicidal move for any martial artist stupid enough to try it.

"'Alive'?" The old woman scoffed. "Fool girl, have you not heard me at all? No, whatever has done this is a mystical or eldritch being, of great and terrible power. Too great, perhaps, for me or anyone else to undo. It remains for us to discover both what the nature of this being is and what reason, if any, it had for doing such injury to the young man."

Ukyo slumped in Akane's grip, and the short-haired girl released her hesitantly, allowing Ukyo to momentarily turn her face away as she shut her eyes tightly.

_Demons and lame-ass magic...what kind of world are we living in?_

"You believe that you can help him?" Tofu asked the old woman, looking down at her with his arms folded and an uncertain expression on his face. Cologne, rather than taking issue with his apparent impugning of her skills, responded gravely, apparently feeling that the situation warranted such seriousness. Or perhaps she felt that the doctor was a colleague of sorts, albeit an extremely junior one.

"I believe that, of all the medical and mystical practitioners in the entire nation of Japan, and most of China as well, I am the one most suited to helping Mr. Hibiki. He should count himself fortunate indeed that I am someone he knows, and that young Miss Akane had the foresight to seek out my assistance."

Akane flushed a bit and looked down at her sock feet. Ukyo wondered what it felt like to be praised by a member of an enemy camp, especially one with such a high-and-mighty opinion of herself. Ukyo had certainly never experienced such a thing; Cologne typically barely acknowledged her presence even when they were in the same room together, and when she did it was only to heap scorn on the secondary rival of her darling little Shampoo. Ukyo really hated that crazy, interfering old bat.

_But_, that obnoxious little voice in the back of her mind which had really been getting out of hand lately, _But what if she can help? What if she can save Ryoga?_

Well, so what if she could? It wasn't like it would make any difference at all in Ukyo's life.

No, it certainly didn't matter.

"I think my two minutes are up," Cologne said to the doctor, bouncing up onto the top of her staff with a single, mighty spring. She met the doctor's eyes with a steely, unflinching gaze, then gave a slow smile. "Well? Are you convinced that this old lady knows a little something more about the world than what modern science can teach you?"

"Maybe..." the doctor hesitated, turning to cast a glance down the silent hallway. "Basically you're saying someone damaged—"

"His mind, yes. But the mark is there, clearly, in his _ki_, for anyone with the ability to see it. Whatever did this is an ancient force, older than the Amazons, older in fact than the people of China and all its various tribes. Older, possibly, than mankind. It took something from him, something central to his being. Now the real trouble has begun."

"Because...of me?" Akane asked in a small voice. Ukyo wondered how the girl was processing all this. What did it mean to find out that someone you thought of as merely a friend found you in some way central to his life? "Why me?"

"Imagine, if you will, a jigsaw puzzle." The Matriarch gestured with two tiny, wizened hands, though she went right on balancing on the knotted top of the stick—Ukyo wasn't even going to guess how. "If you have a completed puzzle, you can clearly see the way in which all of the pieces connect to all the other pieces and make a single, coherent whole. Occasionally, you can lift it right up off of a surface and it will remain whole.

"Now," she gestured with one hand, "Imagine if you put your fist cleanly through the center of that little puzzle of yours. Of course it will initially remove those central pieces. But the question that I put to you know is, _what happens to the rest of the pieces when the center is removed?_"

There was a moment of silence between the five martial artists before Ranma spoke up, quietly, from his position some distance behind the two fiancées.

"The whole thing comes apart."

"That's right, son-in-law." Cologne nodded, as a proud teacher to a particularly precocious student; Ukyo rolled her eyes. "All the pieces depend on all of the others to hold together. Without that center, without in fact any several pieces, the whole thing will comepletely dis-integrate. Ryoga's psyche is trying to cope with the lack of any coherent memory of Miss Tendo here, but since she has figured so prominently in his life in the past year, nearly _all_ of his memories have been affected."

"Because he remembered me," Ranma said.

"Yes. And Ukyo. And quite probably Nabiki and Kasumi. Genma, Mr. Tendo, Happousai—"

"But wait a minute!" Akane interrupted. "Why didn't I have the same problem with that technique Shampoo used on me when she first got here?"

"Because that technique is not the work of an ancient, malicious entity. Nor, you may have noticed, is it anywhere near as effective. _You_ were able to eventually regain all your memories because, while they were suppressed by the Shiatsu and the formula of the shampoo, nonetheless they remained firmly lodged in your head. In Ryoga's case, he has no memories to regain. Those memories are _destroyed._"

Akane looked stunned. Ukyo couldn't blame her.

"So he'll never...he can't get those memories back at all?" the long-haired girl asked. Cologne gave her a haughty glance, then softened slightly, sighing and shaking her head.

"You can't regain what doesn't exist. And as he encounters situations and people associated with those extinguished memories, his mind will struggle to compensate. More and more pieces will be wiped away. First the little things—the Tendo Dojo. Mr. Tendo. Genma. Kasumi. Nabiki. Eventually, in the end, even you son-in-law, and you, Miss Ukyo, will be expunged."

"My god..." Ukyo breathed.

"But Ryoga's association with my son-in-law goes back a long, long way, doesn't it?" Cologne's tones were now those of a teacher, trying to guide her pupils to some newer, more difficult understanding.

"Yes," Ranma answered her, "A couple a' years ago, we went to school together."

"And tell me, son-in-law, what sort of person was Mr. Hibiki at that time?"

Ranma hesitated. He looked up at the ceiling, chewing on his lip as he struggled to remember. Finally, dropping his gaze, he glanced at Ukyo and Akane before addressing the Matriarch.

"He was angry," Ranma said, "All the time."

Cologne nodded. The answer didn't seem to surprise her.

"We grow up," she said, mildly, looking into the doctor's face. "We grow older. It's a difficult thing, for someone to have a part of their being taken away, whether they willed it or no."

Dr. Tofu exhaled a long breath. His shoulders slumped. Casting another glance down the long hall, his face for a moment betrayed an internal struggle: the war between his desire to help his patient through his own training, and his experience with the truth of the mystical forces Cologne and those like her commanded.

Finally, he said, "What do you intend to do?"

"I need to examine the boy," Cologne told him. "There are techniques for tapping the spirit world and obtaining information. This is what must be done now. I must beg for assistance from the deep-down creatures, those who inhabit worlds rarely visited by humans in this day and age."

"How long will something like that take?"

Cologne smiled her disturbing little smile.

"Not long," she said, and then for some reason looked over at Ukyo, smile broadening. "If I have assistance."

* * *

_A/N:  
_

_"Piggyback" in Japanese is "onbu," so, sorry, no pun there._

_Too many characters in this chapter. Gah. I'll try to narrow it down a bit for the rest of this story._

_It's taking me longer on these chapters now because I'm preparing to leave Japan in a couple of weeks after two years so...there's a lot to take care of. I've accumulated so many books I could open my own library.  
_


End file.
